Folks Of Fury (#1; Tales Of Elysia [COMPLETED])

twenty-three.

I hadn't asked Ezra if the Agnate had outright executed Lord Rite. But I had to trust their arrogance in keeping ther prisoner for aceueler justice.
I went into the Moors, not sure if my presence in Fey lands would be taken badly. But I needed to see Aina, she always gave the best advice even if it was at the expense of my humiliation.
I waited by her pool after calling for her, almost an hour later she hadn't shown and I wondered if she had been banned by the Fey Queen to speak to me.
"The Quarry is otherwise occupied, Senoy Furyflame." Aristyl's hard voice rippled through the space between us.
I looked up  from where I leaned against a willow tree, and watched his graceful approach; the heels of his foot barely touching the grass, the crescent moonlight made him look like he was bathed in silver.
"Why do you call me that? Furyflame isn't my name."
He tilted his head, old amethyst eyes unblinking. "It is now. Or do you prefer witch blood or the more demeaning names like your family have called you these years?"
I didn't respond, instead watching for any sign of attack. I had to be wary of this deadly Knight. Queen Mab might've sent him for nefarious reasons.
A smile slashed across his face. "Even if she ordered your death, I doubt any creature under the sun would achieve it. You have come into your true nature and that has changed your name."
It was yet another mysterious nature of the Fey; they were untouched by time but their essence or soul were fluid and ever changing and it held consequence to their very identity.
"You're not the only one who has called me that." I noted with a sigh.
"Who else?"
I hesitated to say but it seemed the Knight had the clear undisturbed access to my mind because he spoke.
"The Lord Rite."
I growled in frustration. "You have to stop that. Whatever you're doing to get into my head, I'm particularly averse to that violation."
"Then you'd just have to keep me out." Aristyl cut a glance at me as he started to peel pieces of his armour from his body like one would do a banana. Yet I could attest that the metal was tougher than anything.
Underneath the armour he wore clean linen white tunic and pants, Aristyl piled his accoutrements and weapons at the side of the tree.
Now he didn't look like a fearsome Knight sitting there by the pool; nimble legs crossed at the ankles.
"Is there a reason you are looking for the Quarry?"
I was reluctant again. Why was he so amiable to me now? Bearing the air of friendship or one as close to friendship as an ancient bloodthirsty warrior would have?
But I had to consider the fact that he had never given me cause to be this wary. And he could take offense to my hesitation. The Fey were fickle as shit.
But perhaps my need to talk to anyone right made me wall over to sit next to him on the gossamer blue grass. "I wanted the company of my kind. The Agnate-"
"I did say they would turn on you after they have taken from you. It is their way, and the sooner you cut yourself from them the sooner you will earn your place with us."
I frowned, my hands clenched on my crossed legs and I retorted with gritted teeth. "It's not like you gave me a choice. Your Queen could've taken me in from the beginning moment she saw me being abandoned years ago. I have proven I have as much Fey blood as anyone of you. And yet I am still tested."
Aristyl nodded, "Perhaps the purest too." He remarked before reaching to take water in two cupped hands, the water shimmered an incandescent silver and he drank wholly.
"What does that mean? Do you know who my father was?" I had always felt that my Fey father had been a renowned gentry in Mab's Court.
Mom had disclosed, the one time she wanted to, that he had been a most famous Knight.
So Aristyl or one of his brothers would've known him.
Aristyl's gemlike gaze fixed on me. "Is that the true mystery you want resolved, Senoy? Does it really matter who your sire is, when you have done well enough without that knowledge?"
  I stared into the pool. It used to be a big deal that I had nothing to go on about my father. Mom never spoke of him for the sake of her husband and either she had told her sisters and they refused to divulge or they really didn't know.
"For the service you did by returning the dead Fey to us, I will give you one simple truth. But you must ask the right question, Furyflame."
I didn't think on the great chance to resolve some problems in my life. I could ask about Ezra, or my father's identity. I could ask how to stop the Lord Rite.
"Where is the Lord Rite being kept?"
Aristyl smirked. "Because they had a great hand in capturing the fiend, the Fury sisters hold custody for now. His trial will begin at the dawn."
I blinked at the distant east, sighting a speck of the soft golden light of dawn in the horizon. And I rose to my feet, brushing off grass blades from my clothes. I had little time to act.
"Remember the bargain you made with the Fey Queen, Senoy Furyflame. Bring the villain to her in chains and see your future set amongst us."
In a blast of violent gamboge light, I shifted into a hawk and flew away.
Going home wasn't something I intended. But Lisette's life and that of her baby depended on my change of thoughts.
The Manor was quiet and devoid of activity that I had been expecting from the venue of a murder trial.
Before I even crossed the gates, I knew the compound had been sealed off with as much anti-Fey spells as necessary.
I just didn't expect the infallibility of the layers of enchantments used for it.
Through the network of interlacing wards and spells, I could see that my mother, aunts and siblings had casted the central spells with other stranger's signature craft engulfing it.
In all, there was no chance I could break through. Not on my own anyway and definitely not today.
"Well boy, I'm disappointed you've come this late." I turned towards the path leading from the greenhouse behind the Manor.
The sight of the average height elderly woman in green apron and raffia sun hat over her mess of grey hair, made me sigh out.
"Aunt Hetta, I didn't think-"
"Yes yes, you don't do much of that nowadays, do you little spawn?" She pulled off the rubber gardening gloves and strutted forward.
She waved her hand and I felt the confluence of protection and boundary spells dissipate like the passing of breeze.
"Come closer, let me look at you. Been some time since I did." I walked through the swinging gates and marched to my half senile great aunt.
I had to bend low so she could reach up her shaky hand up to my face. Aunt Hetta smelled homely of lavender and hemlock.
Her wrinkled fingers splayed across my cheeks, feeling and tracing as her filmy eyes held a secret knowing shine.
"Yes, you are almost close to becoming who you're meant to be." She drew away her wrinkled hands.
"Do you know why I have come, Aunt Hetta?"
She cocked her head, wearing a sardonic half smile. "No, do an old witch a favor and tell me."
I shook my head and responded. "The trial for the Lord Rite. It isn't happening here but I was told he was kept here."
"Yes kept. But my nieces took him to the Legion House. That's where they will try and execute him; the Elders have graced us for that event." She snorted distasteful when she mentioned the Elders.
The Elders? She cannot mean...
I arched a brow. "I..."
"You must go, certainly. Lisette and Henrietta depends on your presence at that trial."
"Henrietta?" Is she having one of her banal moments? Sometimes she could flit in and out of sanity with no warning.
She didn't answer me but took my hand. "You are about to stand before the great Elders of the Agnate, prepare yourself."
Aunt Hetta didn't give me the time to prepare before I felt a sharp tugging down my guts, like a scalding hot spoon scooping my organs.
I heard my great aunt chuckle as a bright flash of russet light exploded.
Then we were standing in the semi familiar backfield of the Legion House.
"We cannot unmask his identity. His disguise has proven more powerful than we thought." Eleazar Khan said.
"Maybe I can help with that." I announced our presence. It was now crowded with every Agnate citizen of Redwood that the space could contain.
Some stood, others on available seats but there was a podium raised at the far end, where a long table had probably been brought from inside the house.
At the table sat eight individuals but my eyes were drawn to the central four intimidating figures, and all were staring agitatedly at us. Two men and two women on high backed chairs and towering vicious faced guards at their backs.
The others I recognized as Redwood's leaders, sitting right next to the Elders they looked diminished and blemished.
Knight, Rose, Scepter and Cross. Those titles bore more meaning than they portrayed to have, especially with these four.
Aunt Hetta chuckled and pulled me forward, all aware that the dozens of supernatural families gathered were glowering hatefully or curiously at me and Aunt Hetta.
I spotted Toby and Eloise in the crowd of Shifters with their parents. Eloise gave me a weak smile but Toby's was closer to "what the fuck are you doing"
Someone shuffled through and suddenly stood in front me. It took a moment for me to realize he was Ezra.
"What are you doing? This isn't-" he began to dissuade me from my advance.
"I'm doing what you stopped me from doing earlier. Saving my sister; why don't you go stand with those you trust more than me."
I shoved past him, Ezra staggered in surprise and I walked on.
"And who is this, Henrietta?" A woman with hair as black as raven wings spoke with an Eastern European accent.
"A bedeviled wretch who has no place in the assembly of the Agnate." I turned my eyes to the familiar voice of Aunt Tereze before a cacophony of hate speech followed suit.
"An abomination with evil as plain as the darkness in his eyes." Another witch yelled out.
"His presence is an outrage!"
"Leave us be, monstrous scum! Have you not taken enough from us?!"
"Why don't you go back to your own demonkind!"
"Insolence!"
Uliana called above the others and her sister. "We do not forget what we cannot forgive. You're not one of us, Senoy. Why come here?"
She had stood up from her chair beside her sisters, shooting death glares at me before she looked toward the Elders.
"Your Excellencies, he is the half breed who caused the deaths of so many of our people."
"If you cannot say it as it happened, then do shut up." Aunt Hetta stated much to the surprise of the witches as they wondered why she was with me.
"The witch plague was of the witches doing, no one else's." The other male Elder in a crimson kaftan with cowries braided in his thick black beard, pronounced even as he threw a dark glare my way.
"Why are you here, Senoy Halfborn? This is a trial of the Agnate, no place for someone like you." I could hear the malicious spite in Eleazar's voice before finding it in his dark eyes.
"Do I have it wrong to point out that the Fey Court holds a seat on this esteemed council?"
A petite middle aged woman in a silver pixie cut  and bright purple eyes nodded. "An honorary seat, only claimed by Her Majesty on rare occasions."
"Then I present to you, my great nephew; envoy of Queen Mab."
"What?!"
"I protest!" All four Elders were suddenly in offensive positions against that idea.
Eleazar Khan looked like he was in between changing into his more monstrous self and attacking.
"With respect to the fact that the Lord Rite began his heinous crimes with the murder of five of the Fey Folk, it is within the Queen's power to be present at the trial or send a proxy in her stead."
My words echoed through the mass of whispering and murmuring crowds, putting them to silence as they turned to watch their supreme leaders tense with trepidation as they decided.
I wanted these high echelon leaders of the supernatural world to hear the unflinching steel in my voice and know that I wasn't some half breed outcast to be ignored or frightened.
"To deny the Fey Court their right will be to violate the Fête des Traités. And we certainly do not want more of their incursions." Aunt Hetta sided with a smirk.
"Very well," the raven haired breathlessly gorgeous woman declared, her sharp azure blue eyes narrowing at me. She was certainly the vampire Elder, Akashe the Cross.
"Take your seat, Lord Senoy of the Court." Delphine the Rose waved to the only empty seat at left hand of Eleazar the Knight.
Aunt Hetta winked at me and stepped back into the gathered covens who undoubtedly whispered insults at her mental state for bringing me here.
My mother got up from her seat, offering it to Aunt Hetta who took it with as much haughtiness as an aged but dignified queen.
"And so you finally give your allegiance to the Fey Queen, huh?" Ezra's father sneered with visible show of his elongated fangs. My hand dropped to the comforting touch of Angurvadal's cold hilt.
I wasn't going to use the sword against Ezra's father or anyone of them but I had brought it to give them caution. Although the sight of an ancient sword might not affect these powerful creatures, Eleazar had witnessed how skilled I was with it.
Taking my great aunt's courage to account, I raised my chin and sat beside him, facing the gathering of all supernatural factions of Redwood.
"Fortunately still, my allegiance is my own, Mr. Khan." I retorted back at him.
"Wetin you dey wait for, eh? Bring out the prisoner." Oseigbovo, Scepter of the Agnate hollered impatiently.
Eleazar gave an affirmative nod and two stern faced Hounds stepped back into the house and a minute later, dragged out with them with clanking chains bound around wrists, ankles and neck.
The Lord Rite was still clothed in his heavy dark cloak and hood, though dirt and blood smeared the once immaculate clothing.
At the sight of the villain, the audience of Agnate creatures threw up jeers of anger and spite at the being who had caused them so much fear and pain these past months.
They bayed for his head. I watched the Hounds pull his willing and seemkingly half conscious body forward before they shoved him to his knees before the Elders.
"He was tortured?"
"Nothing he doesn't deserve."
Delphine raised a groomed brow and asked. "Don't tell me you're concerned for a murderer's welfare, Lord Senoy?"
"I'm only considering his state of mind for the trial. How else will he voice his confessions?"
Oseigbovo croaked a dark laugh. "We get serious ways in dragging it out of him, if he doesn't speak."
Eleazar looked at me, "If you please, Senoy. You said you could diffuse his disguise magic when even the Scepter couldn't."
I gave a curt nod and raised my hand forward where the Lord Rite knelt.
"Be sure it's only breaking his disguise that you do. Anything else and the whipping your stepfather inflicted on you will be child's play to what we would do to you." Akashe sliced out her threat, pale blue eyes holding stark bloodthirst.
The burst of reddish gold flames shot out from my palms, tunneling in a flare of spiral light and magic till they stretched over ten feet in the air. It burned the air so hot and engulfed the Lord Rite.
The spectators gasped out in awe yet stepped backward to avoid the explosion of blazing fire.
The flames died down and I dropped my hand to see the tall cloaked figure of the Lord Rite burn away.
He crouched up, lifting from his bowed knees. I saw the tumbling curls of dark hair framing a very familiar face.
I was shocked as much as everyone else in the trial as they glimpsed the true face of the notorious psychopathic killer.
Flashes of memories at that face staring and laughing with me at Rita's, our hands locked as we watched street art in the French Quarter and lips that had kissed mine.
Pine green eyes fixed on me as a playful smile curved on his face. "Hello, Senoy. Have you missed me, because I missed you."
But then my flames resurged again and engulfed Lionel in a torrent that startled everyone looking.
"What are you doing? Set it off!" Eleazar commanded.
"I'm doing nothing." Yet at the centre of the red inferno Lionel hollered and screamed out in utter agony.
And just as it had reignited, the fire swiftly turned back down and wisps of ashened smoke blew around.
Could I have unthinkingly burned him? I thought horribly as I found the mass of blackened body where Lionel had once stood.
"Is he..."
A loud wizened gasp shook through the yard and the blackened body reached forward and moved.
"What is this?"
Oseigbovo rose from where he stood and stretched out a hand over the air to catch the flying ash which he then brought to his lips.
The Scepter blinked in surprise as he turned to his fellow Elders and then fixed on me.
"E be like say you right, boyo. He dey mask himself well well."
I was confused from his peculiar accent and diction but I caught that Lionel had been some sort of second disguise.
The burned figure rose from his feet and he still looked like Lionel, except more leaner and sharper features. Like his face had been stretched so tightly across the bones of his face.
It was a meld of bizarre and beautiful because his eyes were more angular and sparked looked green fire but my lips parted in a gasp as I saw the pointed ears.
"This is my true face, Senoy." The Fey Lionel declared bearing a wide grin to reveal jagged shark like teeth.
"You know him, Lord Senoy?" Delphine questioned, looking across Eleazar to me.
I constructed my stunned face and cleared my throat to reply as unfazed as I tried to be.
But my voice betrayed me, stuttering. "W-We all know him."
"Lionel, it... it can't be you." Micah made out from the crowd of the Legion with Chris' confused and sad expression.
I found Ezra a few feet away. He was unmoved, rage and grief mingled and crystallized in those dark eyes.
Lionel was one of his best friends. One of the few people whom he trusted explicitly.
"Eleazar?" Akashe called.
"He is Lionel Niccard; a friend of the Legion-"
"Wrong." I shook my head, my attention unwavering from the Fey before me. Aristyl had been right.
"Wrong about what?"
"That cannot be his name, only another disguise which he used to deceive us. Ask him his name, he is Fey. He cannot lie."
The Lord Rite laughed with humor, tilting his head as he remarked. "You'd think they have learned their lesson in trusting what you say. Pity."
"Say your true identity to the council of Elders." Akashe ordered.
"My name is Liothan Mabben, son of Queen Mab of the Wyldwuds." He proclaimed with every gusto as expected from an immortal member of the Fey Court.
What?! The Queen's son?
A din of gasps and murmurs rented from everyone who heard, passing on to the others who wore the face of the combination of dread and anger.
"Did you say..."
Lord Rite walked closer, his shackles clanking noisily, the grace and well exhibited arrogance I had taken from someone with access to an unbeatable power.
He's a prince of Faery! Does Mab know that the murderer she's been hunting for is her son?
"Yes, you stand before royalty."
Eleazar growled. "That most certainly doesn't exclude any of the charges."
"Oh I do not wish them to be. I want my self-righteous mother to hear all I have wrought to tear away her power and collapse her kingdom."
"So you killed all those people to usurp the Fey Queen, your mother. Why?"
I heard my mother huff a breath. "Why does any child rebel against their parent?" I strayed a passive look at her which she held accusingly before looking away.
"I'm not an aggrieved child, trying to get back at her. Mab has ruled the Wyldwuds for over a thousand of your years and many more of ours and what has she got to show for herself? Repulsive castigation from you who should he bent over in fear and adoration, shame and ridicule thrown at those of us who are born of our blood?"
Liothan shared a sympathetic look at me, but I steeled the frown on my face.
"In the time when you were known as Elysians, the might of the Columnar was feared and respected from the crags of Faery to the very edges of the mortal world. Queen Mab has failed us, and I will correct that failure."
And I remarked, "And how would you intend to achieve that?"
"We do not want to hear the schemes of a mad Fey. Schemes which will not see the light of another day."
"No, we should know the extent of his plans. The ley lines still rupture through our world, the best we know of it the better we heal the earth." Aunt Tereze added.
Eleazar growled at Liothan. "Answer, Fey. What were your intentions with these sacrifices?"
He was adamantly quiet, jaws locked down to prevent speech with his emerald green eyes flashing hatefully at the Knight of Agnate.
"Speak!" Oseigbovo hollered with a rattle of his staff, the knuckle bones at its head rattled and a wave of chilling power permeated the air.
Liothan collapsed to the ground, yelling and writhing in torturous agony. The pain ripping through his immortal body.
I started to protest at the uncomfortable sight of his torture but I struggled to keep still. I couldn't be seen to be complacent to his cause.
Yet it didn't stop pity for him. He was Fey, though mad with bloodthirst and evil, still my kind.
"Liothan, stop fighting it. Tell us."
He screamed; the crowds tittering in amusement at his suffering, delighted smirks and wicked satisfaction in their eyes.
"I- I wish to u-unleash the Old Beasts in-into this world. Creatures before the time of the Saints which they'd hunted and banished into the Ether... and then t-take the Seed of Moments f-for myself."
The Seed of Moments... it's real?
Oseigbovo relinquished his dark magic from him and he slouched into the ground in brief respite.
"That is all a bunch of old wives tale, which proves your insanity if you believe that is true. This trial is done, now Elders and representatives, we will vote for his execution."
"Aye." Eleazar Khan said.
"Aye." Ayesha convicted.
"The Clans must have justice. Aye."
I already knew this would be a unanimous decision. His identity as a Fey had already placed the odds against him.
I didn't hear Oseigbovo give his vote but then I was nudged from my deep thoughts and realized that I hadn't given my vote. The vote of the Fey Court.
"Do you withhold your vote because he is of your people, Lord Senoy?" Ayesha accused.
I blinked and started to rise from the chair, feeling the tension of the people's anticipation as I walked around the table and went to Liothan.
"I withhold because Liothan is Fey and so despite this charade, he must be tried by his kind and his sovereign. Not a bunch of hateful shits like yourselves."
"Careful boy, do not think we are your family to  hesitate on killing you where you stand."
I smirked, watching the guards prowl from behind their Elders with belligerent intent in their eyes. They weren't the only ones I'd have to contend
I went for where the prisoner was, already feeling the turbulent surge of my power, heating my blood and brimming out to the surface, billowing my hair and clothes in an unseen wind.
"Senoy, what are you doing?" Eloise moved to the forefront of her clan to stare incredulously and worriedly at me.
I briefly caught the faces of my friends then. They looked as confused as Ezra seemed to be. Even if I refrained from looking at him, for fear I won't have the courage to do what must be done.
"You could try to kill me. But I assure you, it would be very very unlikely."
"Seize the half breed!" Ayesha hollered just as Oseigbovo raised his staff to direct his bike chilling magic at me.
With an outstretched hand I blasted a force of fiery light to deflect and throw their assaults. The clash of the gathered witches' powers, the others with their supernatural strength felt like an insurmountable amount of force, bearing down viciously at my shields.
I stood right next to Liothan and I heard him chuckle as he straightened up and placed a hand on my shoulders saying, "I knew you wouldn't let them take me, Senoy."
I shrugged his hand off with disgust. "Shut up. I'm doing this for my own reasons."
My shields were already beginning to falter, my body quaking from the tremendous adversity of their combined strengths.
Oseigbovo the Scepter had risen from his seat, his lips quivering in his chants and staff rattling. The air began to taste like ozone, a sizzling burn that came with a thunderstorm.
"Call the ley lines. Use their energy." Liothan croaked behind me. I could hear the insane glee in his voice.
I gritted my teeth, a stab of migraine tearing up the back of my head. "I cannot..."
"Yes you can, you cannot beat all four Elders on your own. Invoke the Rites. Repeat after me, ave shir throie Ravi."
"You are quite impressive with your power, half breed. Too bad you only wield your accursed father's power and none of your mother's."
"Don't pay him any mind. You have both forces of magic in you; witchcraft and Fey. Call the lines and see for yourself, Furyflame." His words started to sound like poisonous nectar in my ear.
I opened my mouth to oblige him. "Ave... shir throie-" but before I could finish the invocation, I heard a familiar roar just as I felt a sudden burst in the pipeline of my magic.
"Do what you must, Senoy. I'll always have your back. Always." And I saw Ezra in half transformation, barrel into the witch Elder to the ground and breaking the assault of his tremulous spells.
I let out a breath of relief but suddenly felt the apprehension of the consequences of Ezra's actions.
Four Hounds were already upon him, pulling him away from the Elder and his father cursed loudly.
But I could only hear. "Here's your chance! I trust you!" He bellowed as his father ordered him taken away before he turned his infinitely angry eyes at me.
"You have turned my own son against me!"
"Ave shir throie Ravi!" And there was an explosion of light which blinded everything else in brilliant white hot pain and fulfillment.

Suddenly we were in the Manor St. Ours. In my sister Lisette's room, standing over her unconscious form on the four poster bed.
She had been dressed in a floral maternity gown, her hands crossed over her swollen stomach as she breathed too quietly and strained.
"You brought me to your childhood home?" Lionel... Liothan asked with a glance around before he looked at my sister.
"Only temporarily. I saved you for two reasons; your ritual affected her somehow and she's been unconscious for weeks."
I tugged at the chains still binding his hands and feet, pulling him closer to the bed. I looked sullenly at Lisette, there were totems of protection and healing hung on the headboard.
"Ah yes, Lisette St. Ours, she is quite the prodigious witch. A worthy successor for the matriarchy of the covens."
I glowered at him. "You did this. Now undo it," I drew out Angurvadal and pointed at him as I declared.
"Heal her to full health, no tricks no linch effects. Or else I'll open you up from throat to navel in the blink of an eye."
Liothan nodded and shook his wrists, jingling the chains. "Unbind me, I can't do any magic with these on."
I narrowed at him but struck the chains with my sword and the fell apart with ease. I moved closer and pressed the tip of Angurvadal at the back of his neck.
He placed a hand on my sister's forehead and closed his eyes. And when he drew back his hand, I waited impatiently.
"She's not waking up."
"A second,"
And Lisette's eyelids fluttered as her chest heaved up and down, drawing a longer breath.
A familiar pair of hazel eyes peered at the ceiling then moved to my face. A smile quickened at her pretty healthily flushed face.
"Little spawn. You saved me."
I smiled back. "You made me promise, didn't you?"
Lisette smiled, bearing so much likeness to our mother. But the smile died as she saw Liothan.
"I have to go. The Agnate will no doubt be hunting for me, after what I did."
"You're not taking him back to them?" She raised herself from the bed, brushing aside strands of hair.
"Yes, you're not?" Liothan looked positively puzzled.
I flicked my hand and the chains whirled up from the floors and snapped back onto his wrists and feet and I earned his discontented grimace.
I sheathed my sword and drew the spaces between my sister and I closer. I embraced her, feeling the quickening life in her round belly.
Her arms enveloped around my neck, the homey scent of juniper and cinnamon wafted from her hair.
"You won't be seeing me on this side of the world, sister." I disclosed honestly. There was no way I could come back even if I wanted to, I was now criminal numero uno of the Agnate.
Lisette pulled away and searched her eyes over mine and an understanding look came over her face. "You never belonged here, anyway. But you will be back, little brother. You aren't done with us just yet."
I smiled and took the ends of Liothan's chains and said. "Goodbye, sister."
"Goodbye... little brother."