by Gwen Rivers
Not ready to see Aiden.
“You don’t have to take her.” The alpha’s tone is gentle.
I shake my head. “Freya was holding the timeline across the Veil to a crawl. If I don’t take Addison now….” I trail off.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
“I’ll drive you.” Liam sprints for the truck while I go to collect my daughter.
“What is this place?” Addison looks at the wreckage from the ranch house. After sixteen years, there isn’t much that the wild mountains haven’t reclaimed.
“It used to be an in-between. A direct line from Midgard to the heart of the Unseelie Court.”
Liam, now in wolf form, whines from the bed of my pickup but I hold up a hand, indicating that he should stay put.
I study her face, so like my own. But those emerald eyes are her father’s. “Are you getting any feelings?”
Addison’s intuition can put even mine to shame.
Her blond brows draw together. “It feels…. wrong.”
“This is where the Veil is torn. Do you remember how I showed you how to change your vision to the soul plane?”
She nods.
“Do it now.” I do as well. Together we look at the massive void that eats soul energy.
A gasp escapes her. “Oh.”
She’s so innocent, my sixteen-year-old daughter. She’s never killed, never done anything but heal. Sometimes I can’t believe she came from me.
“What happened?” She studies the jagged tear, assessing the damage.
“Life and death came together. The forces of creation and destruction tore the Veil that separates our realm from Underhill. When it gets to ground level, anything can cross through. Including the dead.”
“Draugar.” She’s a better student than I ever was.
“That’s right.” I hesitate. This next part is tricky. I think back to my aunts and Aiden, all of whom were there to help lead me to my destiny. “Addison, do you know how to fix this?”
She swings her gaze to meet mine. “Fix?”
“The way you repair animals?” She was a better vet even than her namesake. Part fairy queen who speaks with the beasts like a Spriggan, part goddess whose touch can heal any wound.
She frowns and then gets out of the truck. After a moment, I follow.
This is it, the test.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing.
She reaches out and closes her eyes. I stand next to her, ready to sweep her away from this place, to kill anything that threatens her. I sacrificed my heart to keep her safe. Have lived without it since before she was born. Only love, pure and true from a mother to a child, could turn the icy soul of a once selfish fey queen into the sort of mother who will always, always have her back.
Time moves differently on the other side of the Veil. If Addison can do this, if she can heal the tear I made before she was born, she’s ready for what comes next.
My heart pounds. I don’t know what to hope for.
At first, nothing changes. I see her raise her hands as though measuring. Then that familiar light begins to glow.
My vision shifts to the tear, the jagged edges that flap in an ethereal breeze that my skin can’t perceive but seems to suck at my black soul. All at once I know.
All of this was meant to be.
Addison is she—the One True Queen of the Unseelie Court.
Through the Man’s Eyes
The carriage rumbles past the sea of animated corpses. The landscape beyond their gnarled carcasses looks like the surface of the moon. No green anywhere. Nothing to sustain life. The dead outnumber the living fey a hundred to one.
Too late. Aiden feels it in his bones. They are too late to save the fey. He wonders if Freda and Taj got everyone out in time. He wonders if the gods allowed them to stay in Vanheim.
Will Nic sense it when he dies?
Underhill’s gaze is lost in the bleak landscape.
“Is this what you wanted?” Aiden keeps his tone soft. “You loved this realm once. Were one of the original dreamers. And now it’s in ruin.”
“It is indeed a high price.” Her tone is soft and utterly without remorse.
“My lady?” Rodrick clears his throat.
She holds up a hand before he can speak.
“Stop the carriage,” she barks.
With a frown on his weathered brow, Rodrick calls for the driver to stop.
She turns to the window that faces west. Closes her eyes and waits.
Aiden stares at her intently. With his hands and wrists bound by Gleipnir, he can’t move more than his facial muscles.
“She’s repairing it,” Underhill grates.
“Who? Repairing what?” The fey general looks around in confusion.
Pharaildis’s eyes flash open and she looks not at Rodrick but at Aiden. Her face is a mask of barely leashed fury.
Only Nic could have upset her so much. What is his mate doing?
It hits him like Thor’s hammer. Pharaildis said she’s repairing it. The prophecy. Somehow, Nic had found a way to mend the tear.
His shoulders sag as much as the restraints allow. She’s safe and they have Gretchen. The Veil is intact.
“It matters not. Drive on,” Underhill drums her long, bloodred nails on the door of the carriage. “By the time Loki is free, nowhere in the nine worlds will be out of our reach.”
“You did it.” I move forward and put a hand on Addison’s shoulder.
She doesn’t even appear winded. “Can we go home now? I promised Tate that I’d give him a rematch in blackjack.”
A smile flits across my face and I cup her cheek. “Addison,” I say.
Her green eyes are wary. She has my instinct for trouble. “What is it?”
I swallow. “I need to leave.”
Her blonde brows pull together. “Leave?”
“I’m going to rescue your father.”
Addison’s lips part. “I want to help.”
As I knew she would. “The best thing you can do, baby, is to stay here.”
She shakes her head. “No. Mom, I want to come with you. I’m the same age you were when you first went over there.”
“I know you do. But this…this is my fight. Go home with Uncle Liam.”
She shakes her head, her eyes sad. “You’re not coming back.”
I don’t know how she knows this for a fact. She could have overheard me speaking to Sophie or Gretchen. Hell, for all I know her ghosts have been spying on me. “I will if I can, baby. If you don’t believe anything else, believe that.”
Liam has shifted to human form and pulled on his jeans and boots. He catches my gaze. “Nic, granted I don’t know much about it, having only been over there once. But weren’t you waiting for her to come of age so she could take the thrones?”
I shake my head. “No, I was waiting for her to be strong enough to protect herself. This is my fight, Liam. Addison Sophia Jager, I want nothing more than for you to have a beautiful, normal life. Fuck fate. Make your own godsdamned destiny.”
Addison’s green eyes shimmer with tears. “Mama. I don’t want you to go.”
I pull her into a tight embrace and press my deadly lips against her neck. “And I don’t want to leave you. But I have to and you need to stay here and be safe. I know what I’m asking you. Nothing is the most difficult thing you can do.”
Her shoulders shake. So easy with demonstrations of emotion, my beautiful daughter.
I look to the Alpha. “Liam, I am trusting you to keep her safe.”
He puts one hand over his heart. “The pack will defend her to the death.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Both of you, go now. I’ll send word if I’m successful.”
Liam’s two-toned eyes glow but he wraps an arm around my daughter’s shoulders. “Send word if you want us to back you up.”
“I will.” The lie falls easily from my lips.
I watch as the truck drives off. I imagine them going back to the farm. Chloe
and Sophie, Laufey and Harmony will all be pissed that I left without saying goodbye. But I can’t bring any of them with me. I refuse to risk any of them.
There is nothing they can do. I will be imprisoned or I will die. And I’ve always hated long goodbyes.
The Final Crossing
I check my watch. Twenty minutes until midnight. The grass has gone dormant for the season and leaves fall steadily from the trees. Midnight on Samhain. The night the Wild Hunt should take to the skies to bring in the end of harvest and the beginning of winter. This has always been, will always be my season.
“My queen,” a familiar sibilant voice hisses.
I glance up into the face of the dead Valkyrie. “Long time no see, Nightweaver.”
She stares at me impassively.
“Is Underhill expecting me?” I ask.
The spirit nods.
“You betrayed me.” My tone is mild, almost indifferent. “I saw it.”
“You don’t know what you saw.”
Her answer pisses me off. “You’ve been spying for Underhill.”
Her head bobs easily. “As Nahini ordered.”
My lips part. “Nahini ordered you to spy on me for Underhill?”
She drifts closer. “Your mother trusts me now. I know where the cave is, where she plans to bring your wolf. And I know that the Underground Palace is mostly unguarded.”
I swallow. “Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t,” the Valkyrie responds. “I hope you don’t. Your death means I will be free to join the Veil.”
At least she didn’t lie. I consider her for an endless moment. “You said the Underground palace is unguarded? Does that include the prisoners?”
She drifts up. “Yes. And if you cross here, you’ll appear in the Unseelie catacombs.”
Dare I trust her after I’ve witnessed her actions? Though it galls me to admit, Nightweaver is right. If she is following Nahini’s orders, I might have help.
I check my watch. One minute until midnight. Time to choose.
I just hope I won’t regret it.
Through the Man’s Eyes
Underhill jerks up in her seat. “Stop the coach.”
Aiden breathes in her scent at the same moment. Nic. She’s crossed the Veil. Her scent is that winter apple fragrance he loves.
Alone. No hint of the wildness, the otherness.
The pup. His wolf is frantic but held by Gleipnir, there is nothing he can do.
“My lady?” Rodrick leans forward.
“She’s here,” Underhill mutters. “She’s in the catacombs. Do you have any soldiers there?”
Rodrick’s eyes ice over as the Spriggan connects with the few birds and beasts that still live. “No, my lady.”
Cursing, Underhill rolls up her sleeve. “Give me your dagger.”
The general hands his weapon over to her. “Be careful, the blade is poison—”
Underhill slashes down into the pale white flesh of her arm.
Rodrick’s eyes widen at the sight, but Pharaildis isn’t affected at all. She dips the tip into the bleeding gash and then writes in the air above her face. The letters formed in blood create angular carvings. Runes.
“What are you doing?” Aiden asks.
“Sending a welcoming committee.”
Though he knows it is useless, Aiden struggles to free himself. “You can’t kill her. She’s your daughter.”
“She’s a traitor who will kill me. You said so yourself.” Underhill mumbles something too low for even his wolf ears to discern. She slashes the air with the red dagger, carving patterns. The images linger, glowing brightly for a moment before her bloody commands fade slowly into the ether.
She meets Aiden’s gaze and her lips curve in a satisfied smile. “She deserves what’s coming for her.”
I appear in the same tunnels I’d traversed during my time in the gauntlet. The walls pulse with magic. Even without my queenly powers, I can feel it throbbing like a heartbeat. The womb of power for the Unseelie Court.
“This way,” Nightweaver beckons me forward.
I have no weapons. Sixteen years I’ve been preparing for this fight and for sixteen years I’d imagined what I would bring with me, how I would lay waste to Underhill’s forces.
But the only weapon I need is guile. I recall Loki’s poem from so long ago. Knowledge is power, unless you’re not sane.
Aiden’s father isn’t sane, but my mother is. She knows what she’s doing and is doing it anyway. I will only win by outsmarting her.
The magic that makes Pharaildis Underhill comes from her knowledge of the fey. Though her magic is formidable, and her army is deathless, my strength and determination to end her reign of terror give me the advantage.
She has nothing to lose. I have everything to protect.
My sneakers make no sound as the ghost leads me through the craggy tunnels. Pixies flit from little cracks in the walls, sifting their magic dust across the floor. I dodge it where I can, not wanting to deal with the mind-altering effects of their magical byproduct.
The corridor splits into a Y.
“That leads to the throne room.” Nightweaver indicates the left facing tunnel. “She likes to keep them close.”
We turn right. The thrumming of the walls grows louder and we ascend a hill so steep that my calf muscles burn.
“I have no memory of any of this,” I huff.
“She rearranges the palace. To keep those who still live unsettled.”
Nightweaver does an abrupt about-face and drifts through a solid wall. I stop. The dead often forget that things like walls will keep a living being out.
Nightweaver reappears. “They are just inside this chamber.”
“I can’t get through that way,” I say to the spirit.
“Use your magic.”
I don’t tell her I’m fresh out of Unseelie powers. Instead, I shift my gaze to the soul plane to sense what’s behind the wall.
All it takes is the hazy golden glow for me to recognize Addy.
“Find another way,” I say to the Valkyrie.
“There is no other way,” she insists. “Underhill moves the chamber around to create the door. She trusts no living guards with the prisoners.”
Paranoid. Untrusting. I’ve come by those traits honestly.
Footsteps sound from down the hall. Slow, dragging.
“Draugar,” I whisper.
“Run,” Nightweaver says. “If they corner you in here, they will shred you to pieces.”
I point at the wall, to the prisoners within. “Stay with them. Let them know I’m here.”
I take off back the way I came, panting as I round one corner and head into a new tunnel.
And skid to a halt.
Three Draugar turn to face me.
The dead fey are hideous. Skin hanging, flesh shriveled like raisins. Their eyes have liquified, what little moisture is left runs from the sockets.
My Goodnight Kiss won’t do a damn thing against things already dead.
“No,” I back up, but more are coming. They move slowly, closing the net around me. With each step they grow larger, blocking out all the space around their putrid carcasses.
“Little Queen,” one of the creatures speaks in a sibilant voice. “Come to die?”
It shouldn’t be able to talk, its vocal cords flap in the open air. Gruesome magic is at work.
My back hits the wall. Trapped.
“Up here!” A familiar voice calls. “Nic, hurry!”
I scan the area before glancing up. The ceiling is structured like a wasp’s nest with holes obvious from the rock. A hand that looks more like a large dark paw protrudes from between the crevices just above my head.
I don’t hesitate, leaping up and grasping the offered limb.
An arrow whizzes past my body. It connects with the nearest Draugar. The creature shrieks then burst into flames.
The large hand pulls me up into the dark space between chambers. Then something wraps aroun
d my midsection.
A pair of arms. Pale, slender, and overly affectionate.
I stiffen but then light flares to my left and I can make out the delicate face, the pointed ears, of my assailant.
Or rather my savior.
“Jazz?” I whisper unable to believe it’s really her.
“It’s so good to see you.” She grins up at me. She doesn’t look any older than she had the last time I’d seen her. The smattering of freckles exactly how I remembered them.
“Looks like you needed a hand,” A deep male voice says from behind us.
I turn, dislodging the nymph and then blink. “Taj?”
The Lord of the Land bows low. “Good to see you, Nic.”
“How?” I shake my head, stunned. “How did you come to be here?”
“I told them it was time.” Harmony steps forward.
“You told me you were taking a vacation.”
She shrugs. “Vanheim is lovely this time of year.”
If the seer hadn’t just saved my bacon, I might hate her. That’s when I see the final member of the party. The winged helmet, a long intricate golden braid. And in her warrior’s hand, a familiar sword.
“Freda.” Tears fill my eyes at the sight of her. “Where did you get that?”
“From me. I pinched it from the goddess.” Harmony says.
“I wanted to come sooner,” Freda says. “But we had no way across.”
I shake my head. “How can I complain about your timing? You saved my life.”
She nods. “And now we need to get our people back.”
“How will we get out of here?” Jazz asks. “The dead are everywhere.”
“Leave that to me, little one.” Taj puts his hand to the rock. The fissure starts to tremble and shake. I hang on to Jazz with all my might so she doesn’t slip through the opening below. It’s a struggle to stay on my feet.
“What are you doing?” I shout at him.
Taj ignores me. His cat eyes are closed in concentration.
Shards of stone fall from the cavern’s ceiling, impaling several of the Draugar. They squirm, pinned in place.