by Gwen Rivers
“Child, you are as red as a ripe tomato,” Laufey comments. “One would think you’ve never seen his naked form before. Don’t you know shape changers prefer to be skyclad?”
“I’ve been doing my best not to.” I hold the grubby sweats up. “He has no other clothes, so he’s been making do with these.”
Fern reassembles, her tasks complete. I don’t miss the odd look that passes between her and Aiden’s grandmother. I wonder for a moment if they can speak telepathically the way Aiden can, but dismiss it as they move into position, Fern on his left, Laufey standing regally at the head of the table. Fern reaches her bark colored hands to hold him still as Laufey takes three deep breaths. Theirs is a sort of mind-reading that speaks of years of familiarity and the deepest sort of trust. I’d seen Chloe and Addy work together that way to save a wounded Rottweiler. Needs being anticipated, every action focused on the task at hand.
“What are you going to do to him?” I ask as Laufey’s palms begin to pulse with a soft, blue light. The glow isn’t steady. Instead, it throbs like a heartbeat.
“Patch his mind back together, if he’ll let me. Come closer girl, let him feel your presence.”
I want to inquire about the process—how does one repair a shattered mind on a dining room table—but it’s clear all her concentration is on her grandson.
“Take his hands,” Laufey instructs.
Fern immediately picks up Aiden’s limp left hand and I clutch his right. The warmth of his skin assures me that he’ll live, at least. The question is, will he be Aiden again, or just a shell of the man I’m only just coming to know?
The pulsing in Laufey’s hands spreads up to her elbow, the flashes of blue growing brighter. Her eyes slide closed, as though whatever she is doing is beyond sight.
Sweat beads her forehead and small tremors rack her form.
“Easy, Fe,” Fern croons, still holding Aiden, but eyes on Laufey. “You know what can happen if you spread yourself too thin.”
“No worries, my love.” Laufey grates. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Stubborn old bat,” Fern says with affection.
Laufey smiles slightly.
“What can happen?” I whisper. The question slips out, but I don’t take it back. If they can flirt and tease, they can keep me looped in.
Fern’s gray eyes flicker in the blue lighting. “Patching a broken mind requires a deft hand for the healer and an ardent desire to live from the patient. If the healer stretches her abilities too far, she risks losing her consciousness in her patient.”
I swallow. “And what about if the patient doesn’t want to live?”
“A mind that doesn’t want to heal could kill the healer who touches it.”
My hand squeezes Aiden’s. In my dreams, he’d wanted to die. I can only hope that is no longer his wish.
Stay with me. I think the words, staring down at his face. Please.
Laufey jerks as though she’s been struck. Her head whips to me, eyes going wide. “What did you do?”
“Nothing?” The word comes out as a question because I’m not sure. “Why? What’s wrong?”
She staggers back and the light winks out. Fern drops Aiden’s hand and catches Laufey before she falls. “Fe, what’s wrong?”
“He just….” Laufey shakes her head as though trying to clear it. “The only way to describe it is that he slammed the door in my face.”
Nic?
I start when I hear his voice in my head. Aiden? Can you hear me? Are you hurt?
“What’s going on, girl?” Laufey snaps, yanking her arm free of Fern and staggering back to the table.
“I can hear him. In my head.” I squeeze Aiden’s hand tighter and repeat my question.
Are you? The mental voice sounds small, wary and tired, like an exhausted and frightened child. I hurt you.
I squeeze his hand tightly. Yes, because you needed to but I’m fine now. You saved me. Are you ready to wake up?
No answer.
“This means he’ll be all right, doesn’t it?” I look up at his grandmother who is frowning down at him worriedly.
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head.
“But surely if he’s talking to Nic, he’s not shattered.” Fern comes to stand by her side.
“It’s not Aiden she’s talking to.” Laufey leans down and pulls one of Aiden’s eyelids up. “She speaks to the wolf. Bind him to the table.”
“What?” I ask, and then shrink back when vines grow up out of the floor, wrapping themselves around Aiden’s body. “What are you doing?”
“Keeping him from attacking us.” Laufey snaps. “That wolf is uncontrollable and deadly.”
“No, he isn’t.” I shake my head. “I’ve been around Aiden’s wolf plenty and he never once hurt me.”
“That’s because it was my grandson in control of the beast, a control it took him centuries to build, brick by brick. To master the hunger, the need for blood, for killing. The beast within is insatiable.” Laufey snaps at me. “Even the gods fear wolves like the one in Aiden.”
Fern moves to stand between me and Aiden’s grandmother, acting as a physical buffer between the two of us. “Try to understand, Nic. It will destroy Aiden entirely if he harmed one of us. This is a simple precaution, to keep everyone safe.”
I look down at Aiden again, bound by vines and tree limbs thicker than my thighs. Unable to accept what they are telling me. “Is the wolf really so bad?”
Laufey opens her mouth to form a retort when thunder booms outside. No, not thunder, but the sound of a thousand horse hooves.
Fern disintegrates into her smaller components, then reforms by the window. Her big eyes grow bigger, and she sways on her feet. “It’s the Wild Hunt.”
“They’re after Aiden.” I reach out and put a hand on his forehead, where sweat starts to bead. “They were tracking him in my world, too.”
“I’ll be roasting in Hel before they take him.” Laufey storms out the door.
I hurry to the window and stand at Fern’s side. Together we watch as Aiden’s grandmother approaches the mounted warriors.
They are everywhere, horses and hounds, foot soldiers holding black banners. This isn’t a hunting party, it’s an army, one that looks more than ready to do battle. And Aiden’s grandmother strides right up to it, as though she too is preparing for combat.
I blink as between one step and the next Laufey’s head goes from an even six feet up to the edge of the roof. Then with another, above it. “Is she growing?”
“She is a giant,” Fern’s tone is brisk. “She loosed her grip on her glamour to remind those women with whom they are dealing.”
The sight is impressive. By the time she reaches the front line, her head is taller than the tallest tree. Her skirts swish as she moves, breaking limbs off trees and making the ground quake. I wouldn’t fuck with her.
“Stand down, old woman.” One of the mounted warriors rides forward, her voice authoritative. I recognize it from the woods behind the bar. “We are not here to do battle with you.”
“It is you who will stand down.” Laufey’s voice booms out and I see several of the foot soldiers clap their hands over their ears. “You have no business on my land. Be gone.”
“You harbor one we seek.” The rider removes her winged helmet and I see a long blonde braid slip out before her perfect face is revealed. Freda, my second.
Before I am aware of making the decision, I stride to the door.
“Nic,” Fern’s twiggy fingers curve around my arm, stopping me on the threshold. “You can’t go out there. You’re human. If you interfere with the Hunt, they’ll spirit you away.”
I shake her off. “Let me go.”
“Think of Aiden,” Fern begs. “How will he react if he wakes up to find you gone?”
I glance back at the table, where Aiden is bound by greenery. “Better than if his grandmother dies or he is captured by the Hunt. I need to confront them.”
She swallows and then rele
ases me. “All right.”
My pack is by the door, right where Laufey dropped it. I scoop it up and stride out into the clearing to meet my fate.
Chapter 15
Truce
They don’t appear to notice me at first. Laufey’s humongous back is to me and the warriors of the Hunt have eyes only for her. I approach slowly, heart working overtime, still not sure what compelled me out into the open when I could have easily hidden within the relative safety of the house.
Survival is my main instinct, and here I am, playing fast and loose with it.
Another warrior dismounts and removes her brass helm. A riot of black braids falls around her elegant dark-skinned face. Nahini, the tribal wise woman and third in command of the Wild Hunt. Her face and that of Freda’s are as familiar as my own.
All around us, the swamp quiets, just like the woods when the Hunt chased us. Without the hoof beats or shouts from the hunters, the unearthly host is deadly still. Not a whicker from a horse or a shift in the saddle. The hounds stand ready to attack but don’t pant or bark.
“Great Laufey,” Nahini approaches with gloved hands out in front. “Your grandson swore allegiance to the queen of the Unseelie. Brigit seeks him to keep his word. It is a matter of honor.”
“He has broken no vow.” Laufey points directly at me. “There is the queen he serves.”
I start as all eyes shift toward me. Guess someone had noticed me.
“What trickery is this?” There is no recognition in Freda’s face as her icy blue eyes narrow on me. “You would try to pass off a human as an immortal queen?”
But Nahini frowns and moves closer to inspect me. She stops when we are about ten feet apart. Hairless brows pull together. “Nicneven?”
“You can’t possibly think—” Freda snaps.
“Look with your heart, sister. Not your mind.” Nahini moves even closer. “It is her. You know my face, don’t you?”
I nod, just once, afraid to make any large gestures.
“The ones from Beyond the Veil,” Nahini says to Freda. “We have no record of where they came from. She’s been collecting them. The great Nicneven hunts true!”
She gestures toward the rear of the host, where the foot soldiers stand. The ghostly horde of the wicked dead, those who will serve until the end of time. They part as though great hands shove them away, clearing a path.
I see Paul Anderson first, my most recent victim. Then the woman from Raleigh that’d poisoned her own son. That handsy party bus driver. The German hiker from the Black Forest, the one who’d tried to rape me when I was six years old. They are all here, their eyes unseeing, their forms flickering in the swamp lights. Condemned to death with a kiss, no choice but to serve the Wild Hunt forever.
I didn’t just kill them. I’ve damned their immortal souls.
Hashtag #Stillnotsorry.
“My queen,” Nahini drops to one knee before me. “I am yours to command.”
Though I have watched people die on their knees, something about this subservience feels wrong. “Get up. I’m not a queen anymore.”
Freda frowns from where her second still crouches before me. “How is it possible?”
“All things are possible,” Laufey says. She’s been shrinking until she stands at the same height I first saw her. “Just because one can doesn’t mean one should. But as you can see, my grandson has broken no oath and Queen Brigit can shove off if she claims otherwise.”
Freda shakes her head, her golden braid slithering like a serpent across her armor. “A test then, to prove she is Nicneven.”
I have no confidence that I can pass a test posed by the acting leader of the Wild Hunt. My memories are from dreams, not actuality. I shoot a glance at Laufey, who simply nods. “So be it.”
“Where do I hail from?” Freda stands chin raised in defiance.
I stare at her for an endless moment, scrutinizing her features, her stance, and manner. The pose is familiar. It’s there, a spark of remembrance, a glimmer of a memory. I fan it the same way I would when building a fire, tending it carefully so that it will catch and grow. I smell the ice on the wind, the temperatures well below freezing, the tang of the sea.
“A small fishing village in what is today considered Norway.” I don’t know where the answer comes from, but instinctively I know it is right.
Freda crosses her arms over her breastplate, not convinced yet. “When did we meet?”
Now that I’ve placed her and mentally set the stage, the action unfurls, like a movie I saw long ago. “You trapped one of the low creatures of my court. Gave it its life in exchange for bringing you to the reigning queen.” The words come slowly, with them, the memory of a skinny teenage girl kneeling at the base of the Shadow Throne. “There you offered to serve me in exchange for eternal life.”
Her expression gives away nothing. Freda might have a better poker face than I do. “Why would I make such a bargain?”
“You were to be married to a man who had killed his last two wives. You didn’t want to, but he had wealth and your father was greedy.”
“And you granted my request,” Freda nods.
I sense the trap, letting the story unfold in my mind. “No. I didn’t.” Though I’d wanted to, had felt a kinship immediately with the brave girl who would sell herself to the Queen of the Elphame rather than live the small, sorrowful life that the Fates dealt her. But I couldn’t show weakness before the court, for word of any sympathy would be perceived as weakness.
“I let you return home, where your father married you off to the brute. That night, the Hunt came for him before he could land his first blow. And you were accidentally swept up in the furious host.” Though it had been no accident. Once a human experiences the Wild Hunt, that human’s soul belongs to the Hunt. But without my deadly kiss to mark her as one of the damned, Freda’s life could continue as one of Nicneven’s Nymphs.
Freda’s bright blue eyes shone with tears, not of sadness, I realize, but of pleasure. “It’s really you.”
I shrug, trying to disguise my trembling hands. Up until this moment, I might have been able to convince myself that Aiden was influencing my memories, as they all had something to do with him. But my memories of Freda were as clear as those of Sarah in my mind. And undeniably mine. “I suppose it is.”
Freda removes her stiff black leather gloves and reaches out to touch my face. I don’t flinch under the contact. Her skin is cool against mine, like the frost of that icy northern village settled into her bones. I see the questions in her eyes, but then steely resolve takes over. Then she too drops to her knees.
Behind them, the entire host does the same.
A soft laugh from Laufey and she puts a hand on my shoulder. “The Wild Hunt is yours to command, Nicneven.”
I stare out at the kneeling sea of bodies, both living and dead. My friends, my victims. A heady rush shoots down my spine. For most of my life I have known power, have wielded it over my contemporaries. A secret strength. But now I control an unstoppable army. What will I do with them?
“On your feet.” This bowing thing is unsettling.
Almost as one, they rise.
“Aiden,” I say. “You must stop hunting Aiden.”
“Yes, my queen.” The response echoes through the night.
I look to Laufey, wondering what ought to come next. She gives me a shrug.
“If I may, my queen,” Nahini offers. “What should we tell Queen Brigit as to why we have stopped hunting her consort?”
Her consort? My blood superheats in my veins, my hands clenching into fists. He was my consort. Or, he had been. And she what, appropriated him the way she did the Hunt?
“Easy girl,” Laufey again puts a hand on my shoulder. “Rein in your temper.”
“I never used to have a temper,” I grumble.
“Perhaps it would be best if Brigit doesn’t realize you command the Hunt,” Freda suggests. “Or that you are back. Until you are ready to return.”
“Return? As i
n rule?” I’d come to Underhill to save Sarah, not to reclaim the Shadow Throne.
“Not now, of course.” Nahini soothes. That’s her place in the hierarchy of the Hunt, the moderator, the voice of reason. “Come Samhain.”
“Brigit has ruled year-round for almost two decades,” Freda argues. “Nicneven has always been stronger, even in her down cycle and with the Hunt at her back, I see no need to wait.”
I can see plenty of reasons, the first being I have no interest in ruling over a court of fey that would rather eat me than talk to me. “I’m human, the Unseelie won’t accept me.”
“If you no longer rule, you no longer command the Hunt,” Nahini says almost apologetically. “And the wolf’s life is forfeit.”
“Like hell it is.” A snarl rips out of Laufey.
“But you can win your immortality,” Freda waves off my mortal state as though stating a pesky detail. “I did. Nahini as well. We can coach you, prepare you for the gauntlet.”
I glance back and forth between the two of them, wondering what I had done in my previous life that they would have such absolute faith in me.
Nahini looks up at the clouds scudding over the moon. “If we are to cross the Veil this night we should take our leave.”
Freda curses. “We’ll return in three days’ time to begin your training for the gantlet.”
My gaze sweeps to Laufey who stands as though still ready to do battle. “Will you promise not to hunt Aiden again until after this…gauntlet?”
Perhaps he would recover enough that we could run before their return.
“I vow it.” Freda places a hand over her heart and bows.
“On my honor.” Nahini steps closer, her shy smile so at odds with her warrior’s stance. She puts one hand on either side of my arm, then bows her forehead until it touches my own. Then, just loud enough for me to hear she murmurs, “It is good to see you, my queen. You have been missed.”
A lump forms in my throat, as though I’m seeing Sarah again. These women had been my friends, and although my memories of them are vague, it’s still there, almost like watching characters from a favorite movie come to life. “It’s good to see you, too.”