by Ryan Graudin
I feel the beast inside me tugging, begging for release. The battle’s heat and blood excites it, causes it to push harder. I look around at the unfolding destruction—at the awful, leering gray of the Green Women; the icy, still beauty of the Banshees as they pour over the battlements in numbers too overwhelming to count. And the Black Dogs, shadow-licked and howling, eroding us from below. I don’t have much of a choice.
If we want to survive, I have to let go.
Letting go is dangerous. It’s something we’re taught at a very early age not to do. As soon as Mab binds us in these bodies we learn not to go back to the essence. Our undiluted spirit form. Letting go means losing yourself, your memories. It means unleashing a power you can’t control, with no guarantee you’ll piece back together again. That’s why, even in the most desperate circumstances, the Frithemaeg hesitate to tap into the full extent of their power. You might not be able to return from it.
But I have everything to lose if this battle doesn’t turn.
Threads snap. I feel my body dissolving, blowing away piece by piece like a windswept dune. I become pure spirit, leaking into the air around me, feeling every spell cast in the breezy night. Freed from that frail, bipedal body, I could float into the stars or dig down into the deepest parts of the earth. I’m free.
I’m still wandering, slightly bewildered with this aged, yet new way of existence, when a Green Woman’s curse breaks into my territory. I start as the magic reacts with mine. The counterspell flows out of me: reflexive, natural. I look around. I see a battle, but my thoughts struggle to wrap around it. Was there a reason for the fight? I can’t even remember coming up to this tower. Strange, blurred fragments of memories bounce around in my head. None of it makes sense.
Another curse rushes past me, dragging my consciousness back into the present. While the first spell might have been a mistake, the second definitely wasn’t. The Green Women and the Banshees are trying to extinguish the others. Me.
I rush for the nearest Green Woman, the one who cursed me. Sick, jaundiced eyes grow wide when I coil around her and squeeze. Her spirit slides out like seeds from a squished grape. I watch it flicker, fluttering like a fledgling before it goes out altogether.
But this single, silent death does nothing to calm my rage. My next victim is a spindly, screaming Banshee. She puts up more of a fight; her high, piercing yell is hot needles against my nonexistent skin. I absorb her, engulf her entire body. I feel the fragile length of her bones, so easy to snap.
The trail of bodies grows as I go down the wall. It takes twenty deaths before the other soul feeders focus their efforts on me. The Frithemaeg stand back, fear tainting their auras, their eyes. They see me for what I am, impartial and unstable, ready to destroy anything.
Spells surround me, many and ruthless. I’m a cornered tiger, thrashing, letting fury feed my strength. But it isn’t enough. Their magic is too overwhelming. I fall under the weight of it onto cold, hard stones. Curses cram me back into my human skin. Fine grains of sand—lodged in the battlement’s cracks and grooves—press into my palms. My attackers circle in, hovering like gargoyles in my dark, smudged vision. Ready to devour me to the bone.
I curl into myself, bracing for the deathblow. I think of Richard. I think of the Greater Spirit. I shut my eyes.
But it doesn’t come. A single, commanding sound fills the air. It’s a note: low but high at the same time, rising from the south. Every spirit, including my attackers, falls still. I push myself up from the stones, heart racing. I know the call of that ram’s horn. It’s the arrival of Herne the Hunter, the beginning of the Wild Hunt.
The southern stars have disappeared, blotted out by Herne and his fellow riders. They gallop at the head of heavy thunderclouds, their horses’ hooves wreathed in lightning and rain. Herne has gathered spirits from all across Britain—guardians of forests and woods long forgotten. Behind them, in full force, are the Dryads—thin, waiflike women, without clothes or color. They look strange outside their trees, as if they’re walking around without some essential limb. The sight stirs a sick kind of fear in me.
Herne’s horn sounds again, and the Hunt surges forward with the storm. The air quakes. My lungs rattle, my bones hum. The maelstrom swallows the castle whole, shaking its stones to their very foundations.
Herne rides in the front, eyes burning with a red ferocity that would haunt any mortal’s dreams. He’s a storm unto himself, his horse treading the damp air with fixed determination. Every spirit beneath their shadow cringes, but the Lord of the Wood passes over Windsor without touching down. He rides into the other horizon, to the heart of the attack.
The rest of the Hunt hurtles to earth. Herne’s hounds leap for Black Dogs’ throats. Yelps and barks of pain puncture the air as the animals tangle together. The wind burns like sulfur from the clash of their magic.
The Dryads sweep down, vengeful phantoms. Their eyes burn almost as violently as Herne’s. The strength of the trees is surprising. Many of us forget, because they stay so silent and still. But their roots go deep in the earth, giving them secrets and spells the rest of us don’t remember.
At first the Banshees and Green Women fight, but the Dryads rain down like propeller seeds, whirling and endless. The battle thickens and turns with the Hunt’s arrival. The Old One’s followers begin a slow, steady retreat.
My mind, still fuzzy from transformation, soon finds its way back to the most important thing. Richard. I have to see if he’s all right. I have to protect him.
I claw my way through the string of vicious duels. Spells color the sky like fireworks, shedding just enough light for me to see by. The moon has long since disappeared behind storm clouds, and with the electricity gone, the world is completely black.
I slip off the battlements to find a way into the castle. I nearly run into a door before I slow down enough to cast a Faery light. It drifts just over my head, illuminating the castle’s eerie, empty halls. Screams from the battle outside echo through the cavernous rooms, a reminder that things aren’t as deserted as they seem.
I make it safely to the cellar door, approaching it like a stalking cat, unsure of what waits beyond. There’s nothing, no one behind it. I let my light dim to the strength of a firefly, just enough to see the steps in front of me.
When I reach the bottom, all I see are rows and rows of wine bottles. Their green glass catches the Faery light, giving the room a peculiar, undersea feel. I pause at the final step.
There’s a ragged yell. One of the room’s inhabitants jumps out from a stack of wine. It’s the old, drunk duke. His collar is flipped and his vein-lined hands clutch the jagged remains of a bottle.
I hold up my palms in a symbol of friendship, hoping he’s sober enough to register it. He takes a few wavering steps forward before he lowers the shattered bottle, hands shaking.
“You’re Richard’s girl,” he says rather loudly.
I nod, peering into the room’s long, endless dark. Richard’s aura is undeniably absent. “Where is he? Have you seen him?”
The duke shakes his head. “I haven’t seen him. We haven’t seen anyone new since we got down here. What’s going on?”
Richard isn’t here. Fear bubbles up, like explosive lava. “Are any Fae down here?”
He shrugs. “How’d I know? You all look like us.”
Two younglings peek out from rows of wine bottles.
My panic leaves them no time to speak. “Why aren’t you at the door? Where’s Breena?”
“Lady Breena hasn’t been here. It’s just us,” the Fae to my right offers, timid. “We didn’t want to get too close to the door in case one of the soul feeders sensed us.”
Numbness falls over me, killing every limb and layer as I center in on the terrible truth. It was Breena. It was Breena all along. Mab tried to warn me out of my centuries of trust, but I ignored her. The temptation to let go returns, riling the magic in my veins. The younglings sense it too; both take a step back.
I turn and lunge bac
k up the stairs. I can’t be too late. I just can’t.
Please let him be alive, I beg the hidden stars as I blast out of Windsor’s hollow halls into the night. I’ll do anything.
I pause on the veranda that looks out on to the Long Walk. Rain pounds everywhere, soaking my hair, my face, blurring everything. My breaths are short and spasmodic as I reach out for Breena’s aura. As always, it’s familiar, easy to find. She must’ve forgotten how effortlessly I could track her. I pray that’s not the only mistake she’s made.
Thirty-Two
The forest. She took them to the forest.
My magic is a wolf on a leash. I try my best to rein it in. I can’t lose control if Richard and Anabelle are still alive. But if they aren’t . . . I pause by a tree, try to regain my grip. Just thinking about Richard’s death is enough to push me into madness.
The forest is empty. Its trees are somber, dead without their spirits, just sticks wedged into the ground. I weave past their roots and trunks, hardly paying attention to where I’m going. Breena’s aura calls me, tugs me forward with invisible string.
They’re nearly a kilometer deep from the tree line, huddled in a small glade. The sight of Richard and Anabelle squatting beneath branches to get shelter from the rainfall, alive and well, saps the anger out of me. Breena stands at the clearing’s edge, rigid and alert.
I let my magic settle back. It’s clear I was wrong. Breena hasn’t betrayed us.
“Emrys?” Her call is soft, owl-like. “I know you’re here.”
I break through the snarled hedges, into the open. “What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in the cellar?” A glance at Richard and his sister tells me they made it to the archery equipment.
“The way back was cut off, so I brought them here. I tried to find Titania and the other two, but they’ve just vanished.”
“It’s a big forest,” I say.
Richard stands, trots across the mulchy earth. His shirt, a white button-up, clings like paint to his sodden chest. Water drips down his hair, sheeting his cheeks and falling down to me as he pulls me close.
“You’re alive,” he breathes into my ear.
“You sound surprised.” I wrap my arms around him, cling to his shaking self as hard as I can. It seems I can’t keep him close enough, even with our bodies pressed so fully together. I want to melt into him, to make sure I’ll never lose him again.
“It just looks so crazy over there, I wasn’t sure. . . .”
Something inside me seizes up, like a turtle scared into its shell. I pull Richard behind me. Something else is in these woods. Something close and powerful.
Breena feels it too. She curses and jumps in front of the princess, movements made of rainfall and gold.
We stand, silent and still, staring steady at the trees. I begin to feel like a deer under a hunter’s crosshairs, waiting for the trigger to hammer down.
Richard’s fingers rest on the small of my back, shooting me full of shivers. I want to turn around, kiss him. But the danger of the woods looms, clawing through crystal walls of rain. Instead I relish this connection between us, trying not to think of how it’s probably our last.
The bushes shudder, violent and hushed. My magic coils back, ready to strike at any moment. There’s no point in hiding anymore.
A lone figure pushes out of the underbrush and pauses. I squint through the downpour. Something about the creature’s aura is familiar but untraceable.
“Mab,” Breena whispers.
And then I realize my friend is right. It’s our queen standing at the edge of the glade, an albino vision through blurring rain. Magic hums, shimmers around her like a quaking star. Something’s wrong. I should be breathing a sigh of relief, but instead my insides collapse.
“It’s you.” Breena’s voice trembles. “It’s been you all along.”
Mab’s spell leaps without warning. Sick white light slices through the storm, bursts apart the rain. Its lightning claws into Breena’s chest, ripping through her like wind tunneling through broken glass. Her spirit leaks out. It clings desperately to the edges of her body, but Mab’s spell is too strong. Breena’s essence spirals high, snags crooked branches, slips through them, leaving me.
There’s her body, bent, empty, and pelted by rain. She’s gone. Dead. I know this, but I can’t make myself believe it.
I can’t move. I can’t think of any spells to protect us. I only look at Mab and notice that, for once, her eyes have snagged a single color: cutting red, deep as murder. Her pale lips open to speak another spell of destruction.
It’s Anabelle who saves us. Her arrow flies, plowing into our huntress’s bony shoulder. The Faery queen shrieks, a sound so unearthly and deep it wakes me from my trance.
“Blodes geweald!” I spread my arms, forming a circle of protection around the royals and myself. The shield is hasty, but steady.
The queen is bleeding. Maroon stains her silver bodice, looking almost black in the lack of light. Her howling dies and she reaches down, plucks the arrow out of her muscles. Breena’s spell swims faint over the bloody arrowhead. Mab’s wound will fester with it, unable to heal for a time.
She throws the arrow onto the ground, grinds it beneath her bare heel.
“What are you doing, Mab?” I find my voice again. “What have you done?”
My queen’s face looks as it always has, a profile etched in marble. Only her eyes sputter, wavering between the humans and me. “It’s over, Emrys. For centuries we’ve been bound to them, protecting them. And what have they done to thank us for it? They’ve forgotten the old ways and created this poison.”
I see it, just behind those crimson eyes. That unsteady flicker that rose in the faces of every Old One we had to put down—the sickness. Somehow, despite all the Fae in her court, the sickness took Mab without anyone seeing. It crept through her veins, slipped through the cracks of her mind. . . . She’s lost to it now. Her magic is warped, tainted by insanity. No wonder I didn’t recognize it.
“But you swore an oath to Arthur,” I remind her. “All of us did. We can’t break it. You know that.”
She spits at the ground. Blood. I pretend not to notice the bright red spattered on long-dead leaves. Despite her immense age and power, Mab is weakening, unraveling so close to the city. If I can keep her talking long enough . . .
“My oath to Arthur was in a different age. . . . We were vanguards once. Now we’re only slaves. I knew I couldn’t break the oath without consequences. But there are loopholes. Oh yes, there are always loopholes.” The vicious, lusty glint steals through her eyes again. “If the crown were destroyed—if Arthur’s line and lineage was completely decimated—then we would be free of our bonds. But it wasn’t just about freedom. The problem still remained. How could we survive without the blood magic? There were ways that power could be harnessed, ways we didn’t dare try to take back in the golden age, when mortals held magic of their own. Still, they existed. Merlin never told us much about Arthur’s magic, yet I knew that death transferred power, just as birth did. It was only when I remembered this that I decided to kill Edward.”
Keep her talking. Let time do its work. I take a deep breath. “But how? How did you get to Edward without anyone seeing? I was with you the day he died. . . .”
A smile, crazed and satisfied, slips across the queen’s face. “It was no easy task, trying to assassinate a monarch without the court catching wind of it. I knew they would try to stop me. They’re still too blind, too loyal to the promise we so carelessly gave those centuries ago. But the soul feeders were more than willing. They even decided to play nice with one another once I offered them a place in the new kingdom, the Albion without mortals. So I stayed in the Highlands, keeping court while the Banshees and Green Women did their work. It wasn’t until the Banshee killed Muriel and King Edward that I realized that only the monarch’s killer can partake in the blood magic—another thing Merlin refused to tell us. The Banshee took it all for herself, but I was still more powerful. I ki
lled her and started again, from scratch. It was Richard’s blood I needed—and I knew this time I had to slay him by my own hand.
“But how to get to Richard? I sent a Green Woman, protected by layers of my own magic, to fetch him—but you proved too strong. I realized that if I wanted to get to Richard, I would have to distract you. So I tried turning your suspicions toward others of the Guard. I knew that if you were looking for a traitor, you wouldn’t see what was happening right under your nose.”
I watch, hard-eyed as her blood blooms, staining the beaded lengths of her sleeves and bodice. Mab played me. She played me well.
“Yet you seemed to be so determined on keeping Richard in the city, where I couldn’t reach him. I had to set the stage: create the illusion of a safe haven. Windsor was the perfect place. All I had to do was procure Herne’s permission to use the land . . . to let as many immortals in as I pleased, be they Frithemaeg or soul feeders. I knew too that if I demanded Herne help you, he would rebel. I counted too much on his pride perhaps . . . for I see you’ve found a way around that. No matter.
“Once Jaida and Cari found you spying, I knew I had to move. The soul feeders did their best to crowd you out. It worked.”
“So you’re going to kill them? All of them?” My voice shakes, a horrible mix of anger and fear. How could Mab, the queen I gave myself to, served so loyally for years, be capable of this? The madness must reach even deeper than I imagined.
It’s in this moment that an irredeemable knowledge settles on me, crushes with its weight. We’re dead. Any hope, any thought I had of reasoning with Mab, wilts under the insanity in her eyes. And the queen, with centuries upon centuries of power, could destroy me in a heartbeat. My magic won’t be enough to save us.
But I must be strong, for Richard. For Anabelle. I cannot let them die afraid.