by Emma Hamm
A clawed hand caught the fabric of her shirt and shoved her forward. With a shout, Aisling fell onto her knees. She kicked out with her leg, catching a rib that cracked loudly.
The duchess dug her nails into Aisling’s sides. Each dig made her flinch, long furrows opening in her skin as the faerie forced her to turn onto her back.
For such a small woman, the duchess was surprisingly strong. She held Aisling underneath her with ease, hardly panting with the difficulty of suppressing her movements. A wild grin spread across the faerie’s face. “My sweet, you are always entertaining.”
Aisling spat in her face. “Go to hell.”
She managed to wiggle an arm free and desperately clawed the duchess’s heart, which was so close.
The faerie leaned back a fraction, just out of her reach. “No, I know why you want that my dear, but you aren’t going to have it. Killing the Raven King’s consort will likely anger him, but that is part of the fun. I’m much more interested in killing the Unseelie Prince, and when I explain why you had to die, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Why do you hate him so much?”
“I don’t hate him.” Claws raked down her sides. “I want to be him.”
Anger heated Aisling’s blood. She snarled and twisted harder, trying her best to reach the heart inside the duchess’s chest. “He is infinitely more powerful than you.”
“Oh, sweet little girl. Do you think I have to go through you to get to him?” The duchess shook her head and tsked. “No. All I have to do is poison you. And you did say you preferred poison as a surprise, didn’t you?”
When the nails dug deeper into her side, Aisling realized she couldn’t quite feel the pain in the same way. Instead, all she felt was a growing cold sensation spreading through her sides and sinking deep into her bones from the sticky coating on the duchess’s nails.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
As her body fell into a quiet stillness, the duchess leaned forward and pressed her lips against Aisling’s ear. “Tell me, little witch. What flavor now coats your tongue?”
Lips thick, her teeth wanted to chatter but muscles refused to move. Aisling managed to furiously bite out, “Bitter.”
“That’s right. The bitterness of nightshade is so distinct. Those of us who are poisonous creatures wrapped in silk and satin know the taste well. But those who are little more than drab spiders would use something more painful, like belladonna. Sweet, innocent, little witch. You’re going to die slowly, and I will enjoy watching every second.”
The duchess slowly lifted herself from Aisling’s body, and she couldn’t do anything to stop her. Her arms were heavy, laden with the weight of the world. Her legs stilled, toes losing all feeling. Every sense dulled until the power inside her gave one last gasping flare.
The glamour fell away from the secret garden hidden in the heart of the Palace of Twilight. The gazebo disappeared. Twisted metal became gnarled branches, blackened silver turning to dusky bark.
Aisling stared up into the rattling branches of the hanging tree and realized she hadn’t traveled that far after all. Witches always died under the branches of this tree.
An enraged roar echoed from within the crumbling palace. The Unseelie prince screamed his anger, more animal than man. But he was too late.
She tried to whisper his name, but her lips couldn’t move. She twisted a finger in the dirt. It was the only movement she could manage when all she wanted to do was stop him from risking his life.
Her eyes found the duchess, staring up at the windows of her palace with madness in her gaze. “And so the hunt begins,” she breathed. “The beast calls for its mate, a howl of rage and mourning. He feels you dying. Every small bit of life leeching out of you is also pulled from him.”
Glass shattered, and she felt the answering ache in her shoulders and the top of her head. He’d burst free from a window.
A dark shadow crossed in front of the moon. A blanket of ravens made from his magic, his grief. Aisling allowed a single tear to leak from her eye as a dark feather floated from the sky and landed atop her cheek.
Wind buffeted them, as powerful as a storm, electric and so near she could feel him. The ravens swarmed then coalesced into a man kneeling on the small path. Slowly, he tilted his head up and leveled the duchess with a gaze raw and filled with rage. “What did you do?” he growled.
“Only what you would have done if you were in my position.”
A ripple of feathers flared from his head and spread down his back. The darkness swallowed his form. It covered his body in magic and a nightmarish abyss with not a single of light in its heart.
“You are not allowed to touch her.”
“And you are bound.” The duchess gave him a pitying smile. “You can feel the weight of the nightshade, Unseelie prince. Let yourself fall into its comforting embrace. Stop fighting so hard as you have your entire life.”
“You haven’t bested me yet.”
Aisling sucked in a breath, a small whimper escaping her lips when he launched himself toward the duchess. He was a blur of dark feathers and the wide expanse of the night sky. And he didn’t get anywhere near the duchess.
Appearing out of thin air, the duke locked his arms around Bran. They grappled, twisting like two great snakes. Bran’s teeth flashed in the moonlight. Pointed fangs sharpened to deadly tips that sunk into the duke’s forearms.
She heard the creaking of ribs, felt the flare of pain, as the duke squeezed down on Bran’s torso. An agonizing groan filled the courtyard, and then Bran managed to wiggle an arm free. He reached behind him, sank his fingers beneath the duke’s mask, and pulled it so hard the bolts ripped out of the duke’s face.
Both Aisling and Bran sucked in air as he was dropped. He rolled, crouching with one hand pressed against the ground and a wary eye on the duke who now covered his face with his hand.
“My mask,” he huffed, “my mask. Give me my mask.”
“No.” Bran snatched it from the ground and snapped it in half.
“What have you done?” the duke roared.
The scream blistered Aisling’s ears. Blood leaked from the canals, dripping down into her hair. She tried to scream, but the nightshade had paralyzed her.
Bran stumbled to his feet, and the duke turned toward her, revealing the nightmarish face he had hidden from the world.
She remembered Bran saying the duke liked to steal bits and pieces of people. She hadn’t realized he could steal eyes.
Every inch of his face was covered with multi-colored eyes. They blinked at random intervals, but each stared into her gaze with equal parts horror and resignation. Though he tried to cover his hideous appearance by lifting his hands, she could see he knew what was coming for him. Who was coming for him.
Bran burst into an unkindness of ravens and attacked the duke’s eyes. Each carefully cultivated globe was punctured by beaks that glinted in the light. No pity was shown for the man who had stolen so much from so many.
Feathers flew in the air, but the duke did not try to stop him. He fell to his knees before Aisling and held his hands out in supplication. She felt the anguish, the agony, the pain that had been buried so deep in his soul he did not recognize himself.
Strength flowed from Bran, allowing her to reach out a hand and touch the duke’s bloodied palm.
“Thank you,” he sighed. “I am free.”
Aisling turned her gaze from the cursed man. The duchess pressed her hands against her lips, and a shriek echoed from her chest. The heart fractured, a thin line cracking from top to bottom.
“My love,” she whimpered, reaching out a hand as if she might touch the duke. “What have you done to my love?”
“Only what you would have done if you were in my position.” Bran lunged forward, clumsy but still on his feet. The duchess didn’t notice him because she was too busy staring at the duke. Still, she locked her hand around Bran’s wrist as he reached for her.
Aisling watched his face twist as b
oth their arms began to shake.
“No,” the duchess whispered. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“You handed me your heart the moment you laid a finger on her.”
Bran plunged his hand into her chest, grasped the green glass heart, and pulled it free.
A soft sigh eased between the duchess’s lips. Her face smoothed into a soft, pleased expression, and she fell to her knees in a graceful movement. Weak and dying, she slumped to the side.
Aisling wheezed out a sound. She wasn’t certain Bran would even hear it. But then he was there, kneeling over her with black feathers floating around them like prayers. Phantom wings of darkness stretched from his shoulder blades and hid galaxies within them.
“Aisling?” he asked, smoothing her hair away from her forehead. “Can you hear me?”
A shuddering breath was her only answer. She couldn’t tell him that she’d drank nightshade since she was little, that the poison would only paralyze her, not kill her.
Instead, the darkness swallowed her whole. Yet even as she lost all sight of the world, she still saw stars behind her eyelids.
Flight To The Isles
Bran pulled her limp body up and pressed his forehead to hers. The cold chill spread through his body. Bitterness filled his mouth, a filthy taste of poison and the ache of guilt.
He hadn’t even noticed her leave the bedroom. Sleep had finally claimed him, a deep, dreamless state that made his waking languid and calm. When was the last time he’d slept like that? It had been years, centuries perhaps.
It made little sense that a witch would be the first to finally ease him into that welcoming darkness, yet she rarely made sense.
He’d felt bereft the moment he woke up. Some piece of him knew she wasn’t on the other side of the pillow mound, but he had still reached for her. He wanted to feel warm, pliant skin. He wanted to see a smile on her stolen face, even if it wasn’t hers.
Instead, he’d been welcomed by cold air and pillows lacking even the slightest indentation from her body.
A crazed part of his mind wondered if he’d made her up in his head. Such a woman couldn’t possibly be real. But memory caught up with him, and the witch became solidified in his mind again.
It was then that a lance of pain speared through his body. He’d lurched onto his feet only to fall against the wall with an aching gasp. Leave it to Aisling to get herself in trouble while he was asleep. No other woman would dare wander around the Palace of Twilight without someone at their side. But his witch? She looked danger in the eye and laughed at its arrogance.
He’d thrown on the same clothes he’d worn the night before and then flung himself out the window. The rest was a blur. Pain, fighting, battle, the thrill of a still beating heart cold and crystalline against his palm.
And now they both were still and quiet. His heartbeat slowed, and adrenaline dissipated until he felt the cold silence of her soul.
“Nightshade won’t be the thing that kills us,” he told her.
Pattering feet echoed in the garden. Bran drew her closer to his chest, a feral snarl escaping from his lips as his gaze searched for the next opponent. He’d defeated the Duke and Duchess of Dusk. Let the others come. He would tear them limb from limb.
Lorcan careened around a corner and skidded to a stop in front of them. “What happened?”
“Nightshade.”
“Is she dead?”
“Not yet.”
Lorcan hissed. A line of fur raised on his back. “I should have remained closer.”
“I said yet,” Bran growled. “I know those who might save her.”
“And you? Will you even be able to get her there?”
He looked down at her, limp in his arms and so painfully cold. His heart turned over in his chest, a ridiculous emotion considering he was certain he could save her. But she wasn’t meant to look so weak. She was supposed to be spitting fire at him and shouting, not so still and quiet he could barely see her chest move.
“Put her into a sleep,” he quietly requested. “A sleep like death.”
“I don’t know a spell like that.”
“Don’t lie to me, witch. It’s not a curse. She’ll wake up from it. The poison will slow, and I will have more time to get her help.”
“Where are you taking her?” Lorcan leaned forward and sniffed her dangling hand. The raised fur along his back smoothed. “I won’t risk her life on more faerie magic, Unseelie.”
“I will bring her to the only safe place in the Otherworld for a woman such as her.” He gently lifted her hand and tucked it against her chest. “Scáthach and her maidens are the only ones who can stop the effects of cursed nightshade. They will heal her.”
“You want to bring her to the Fortress of Shadows? Are you mad?”
“Do you think they will turn her away?” Ferocity laced his words. “They will take her in, they will heal her, and they will admire her spirit. She will stay alive until then.”
“It is a long journey.”
“Not if we open another portal.” Bran shifted her in his arms, looping her legs over his before shakily rising to his feet. “Cast the spell, Lorcan.”
“You don’t know how to open a portal.”
“Cast the spell.”
“Even I don’t know the spell she uses to open up a portal. You’re going to get all of us killed!”
Feathers rippled across his face and down his arms. “Cat sidhe, I swear to my ancestors if you don’t ensorcel this woman immediately, I will be picking your bones from my teeth come morning.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
But the cat must have seen something in Bran’s furious gaze because he muttered something under his breath and began to etch runes into the ground. Every now and then he would glance up, note the shaking of Bran’s arms and legs, and hiss out a long breath before continuing.
Bran recognized the spell. It was a simple one, rudimentary really, but it would do the trick. Sleep spells were quiet things, like the state they induced.
Lorcan stood on his back tiptoes to reach Aisling and gestured with a paw for Bran to lean down. He stooped. The cat leaned forward and nearly touched his muzzle to Aisling’s lips. A slow exhale was all he needed to cast the spell. Silvery light sparkled around his whiskers, sinking into Aisling’s nose and lips.
The spell worked instantly. The cold slowly drained out of Bran. His muscles filled with strength, his shoulders straightened, and he let out a slow groan of appreciation. “Not bad, cat. Maybe next time I’ll ask you to create the portal.”
“I don’t know how, and neither do you!”
Bran gave him a wink. “When you grow up in the Dark Castle, you learn a trick or two about magic. The most important is that if you watch a person cast a spell, you can do it for yourself.”
“Not possible. I’ve watched her cast that spell numerous times.”
“Then perhaps you should apply yourself a little more, cat.”
He strode through the garden, away from the cursed tree. He could feel the dark magic pulsing in his mind. It made shivers dance over his flesh.
A hanging tree. Why hadn’t he ever seen one before her? Bran was known for his ability to see through glamour, and yet such a vessel of dark power had always eluded him. It was almost an insult that he could only see it now that she was in his life.
Lorcan trailed after him, huffing out breath after breath until he finally grumbled, “You can’t actually make the portal just by watching her, can you?”
“Of course, I can.”
He set Aisling gently on the moss, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. He should have been there. The Duchess would never have been able to get her claws into such beloved flesh if Bran hadn’t been lazing about in bed.
Innate laziness had never bothered him until this moment. Unseelie valued leisure and detested any mandated work, and yet…
He should have been there.
The scratches along his ribs pulled, but nothing compa
red to the deep gouges in her sides. He’d have to figure out how to stop the bleeding, but he wasn’t much of a healer. His sister was better at all healing spells.
One of his sisters. He couldn’t remember which one.
Kneeling on the ground, he began to trace runes into the earth. He’d committed each to memory the moment he first looked at them. They weren’t unusual runes, but strange in their combination. No one would have thought to mix languages. Some of these were ancient Tuatha de Danann, and others were ancient Celtic.
Faerie and Human. Melded together to create something unique and unusual. Like a changeling herself.
Shaking his head, he leaned back and nodded. “That’s it.”
“You aren’t using my blood, Unseelie,” Lorcan grumbled from his post near Aisling’s head. “And I’m not leaving to find you a bird.”
“It doesn’t need as much blood as she thinks.” He sank a nail into the fleshy pad of his thumb. Spreading three drops around the circle, he blew out a breath of air, spat, then flicked his fingers to send faerie fire into the ring.
The ground rippled and caved in. It looked nearly identical to hers, although there was the faintest hint of shadow, his own magic intertwined with this strange spell she had discovered.
“Let’s go,” Bran grumbled. He turned and reached for Aisling, only to find his hand stinging from a clawed mark.
“Hang on,” Lorcan scolded. “I want to know exactly what your plan is. Why should Scáthach help us at all? She doesn’t know me, she certainly doesn’t know Aisling, and it was my understanding those maidens weren’t overly fond of the Unseelie Court.”
“She won’t be the person we’re begging for help.”
“Then who?”
Bran blew out a frustrated breath. “She’s bleeding out.’
“She’s not bleeding that fast. Answer the question, faerie.”
“An old friend.”
“An old lover, you mean?” If cats could raise their eyebrow, Lorcan did so. “I’m not foolish. Just what favor are you calling in? There are other ways.”