Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
There was also the outbreak in Siberia where the plague had killed eight members of the clan that Fosch had only heard about a few months later. He had grieved for those too. The Belochkin family had been a close acquaintance, but their deaths happened even before he had acquired the binding stones.
The clan was too big and too far out spread, he had often told the high council. They needed to split, form sub clans that responded to the head clan leader. He had, however, always been outvoted. It was only now whenever he performed the mercy kills that he hated he had been the one to suggest they vote for each major change.
Fosch kept the stones for an entire year after he’d done the last ritual before returning them to Oberon. Though he had no doubt the plague was over, if any of the members exhibited any signs of the plague, Oberon would return the binding stones to Fosch without any further demands.
“What does completion of the bargain entail?” Fosch asked Oberon, standing on the same spot where he had met him once two years past. The sky was still that vivid blue, the trees still lush and full, whispering rustling breezes behind them like the soothing caress of a beloved. The ground was as green as it could possibly be, full of crawling insects and unseen miniature life.
Oberon jiggled the pouch contemplatively, making the stones emit a surprisingly appealing sound. He took his time replying, though he had had two years to contemplate his asking price. It made the knots in Fosch’s stomach grow tighter, though his face remained passive. He had already taken steps to ensure the safety of the clan by renouncing his leadership, then made sure word travelled and reached far into the Sidhe land.
“Completion of the bargain . . . perhaps an offspring would be a fitting price.” Oberon mused, and Fosch’s stomach contents curdled. “A Dhiultadh, one strong enough to power the binding stones and still live to tell. It makes me wonder, what an offspring of yours and a Seelie would create.”
He hadn’t expected such a request, therefore, he hadn’t considered or rehearsed a convincing argument against it. A mistake, he realized now, since he was well aware of the difficulties the Sidhe faced to produce an offspring. His offspring would already have some fee blood, and a couple – maybe three generations later, that scion would be pure blooded enough to mate and produce one or two Seelie before infertility kicked in. A matter of fifty years, perhaps, and a few new Sidhe pure bloods would be created. And Fosch would be helping his enemy’s army grow. His clan would never forgive him, he thought now.
So he tried the truth, knowing Oberon had already made up his mind and there was nothing he could do about it.
“No Seelie would accept a coupling with a Dhiultadh, much less an Unseelie Dhiultadh.” Fosch pointed out reasonably.
“Nay, we would not.” Oberon agreed equably. “For that, you will produce an offspring that will be raised according to our rules and traditions, here in the Seelie land.”
Fosch’s jaws tightened, his hands wanted to fist.
“It is increasingly hard to produce an offspring. Surely, your highness, you know this.” For the Unseelie Dhiultadh, although blessed once with fertility, now faced difficulties to reproduce as well.
Oberon grunted. “You Dhiultadh are increasingly stubborn. Your better peers have not had such difficulties, for they are flexible creatures.”
Once, a long time ago, Verenastra, Titania’s daughter, met Madoc, the leader of the Unseelie court at that time, and produced with him an offspring, a daughter she named Oonagh.
Fosch’s clan were descendants of Oonagh, who had mated with no other than Finvarra, queen Maeve’s – now leader of the Unseelie – bastard child. When Madoc tried to kill Verenastra, she fled the Sidhe land and mated Tristan, the leader of the Tristan star. They bred and started a different line altogether, now called the Seelie Dhiultadh, or the Unseelie Dhiultadh’s ‘better kin’.
“Their blood is diluted.” Fosch argued without any heat. He had never been one to consider his cousin clan weaklings the way all the elders from his clan suggested, and once – during his father’s rein – he had dared to voice his opinion and almost gotten himself ostracized for it. After that particular incident had been straightened, Fosch stopped voicing his opinion, even when a debate arose – and they often did – and some of the elders aimed daring looks at him.
Yes, his mother had not been a Dhiultadh, but his parent’s marriage had been an unconventional arrangement, a way to strengthen the clan during a time of war, and even that hadn’t worked well. Fosch, the firstborn, was supposed to be a scion of the earth witch coven, but his father, the clan leader at that time had circumvented the agreement by declaring Fosch the next clan leader, which would subject Fosch’s first century to a rigorous life in training, making Fosch by default unfit for the earth witch clan.