Darkest Mercy

by Melissa Marr

  Keenan reacted by pulling back his left hand, the one holding the sunlit blade, and trying to force it into the avian faery’s throat.

  She moved too quickly, and it cut her across the shoulder. Instead of responding with anger, she smiled at him.

  He felt, rather than saw, her talons sink into his right bicep. The numbness started to creep across his side and radiate through his arm. He turned to look and saw one of the remaining two faeries swing a blade toward his left knee, but before the blow could connect, someone shoved it away.

  Bananach backed away temporarily. “You meddle where you are not wanted.”

  With confusion, Keenan looked at the faery suddenly beside him. “Seth?”

  “Trust me, you’re not my first choice to fight next to, Sunshine, but as much as it would simplify things, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I left you to her tender mercies.” Seth didn’t spare him more than a glance; instead the pierced newly fey boy looked to the street with unexpectedly military attention.

  “Auntie B,” Seth greeted her. “You need to reel it in.”

  Bananach snapped her beak at him. “Order should’ve kept you in Faerie. You won’t survive here.”

  “I will, but if you continue, you will die,” Seth told her as he put himself in front of Keenan. “Your brother heals.”

  Bananach grinned—a peculiar sight with her beak-mouth. “The other doesn’t. He won’t.”

  The Hounds arrived then like an angry swarm, and before they finished their approach, Bananach and two of her faeries were gone. The third lay lifeless on the sidewalk.

  “You do that?” Seth asked.

  “I did.” Keenan didn’t look at the dead faery. He had no desire to gloat over the loss of life. He couldn’t say that he was happy the slain faery was fallen, only that he was glad he was not fallen.

  I think.

  He didn’t cringe, not in front of Seth or the Hunt, but the gouges from Bananach’s talons stung more by the moment.

  The Hounds enclosed them in a protective circle. Around them, mortals continued to pass, unaware of the invisible conflict in their midst. They were, however, all easing farther away from the sidewalk where the Hunt waited. As when Bananach approached, the mortals felt an aversion to the faeries. With War, it was the feeling of a discordant presence, but with the Hunt it was the urge to run.

  No one spoke for a moment. Neither Gabriel nor Chela was there, but rather than look to another Hound for direction, the Hunt seemed to be awaiting Seth’s command.

  “Go see her,” Seth said without looking at him. “They will escort you.”

  Keenan stilled. “Her?”

  This time Seth did look at him. “Ash. It’s inevitable. No matter which way the threads twist, that’s the next step.”

  “The threads . . .” Keenan gaped at him.

  “Yeah, the threads.” Seth bit the ring that decorated his lip and looked at the air as if there were answers hovering in it. Then he looked directly at Keenan again and said, “I can’t see everything, or see most things clearly enough, but you . . . you I see.”

  “My future?” Keenan felt a fool as he stared down the faery that stood between him and his queen.

  He’s a seer.

  “Don’t ask,” Seth snarled. “Go to the loft. I just left her to be here, to stop your death, so we’re even now.”

  “Even?” Keenan echoed. There were many words the Summer King could choose to describe their standings, but even wasn’t one of them. Seth was a child, a recent mortal, an obstacle to be overcome; Keenan, on the other hand, had spent centuries being near powerless, but still protecting his court—the court that Seth’s very existence endangered.

  The Summer King let the heat of his anger slip into his voice and said, “We’ll never be even, Seth.”

  “You told me once that you didn’t order my death because it would upset Ash. I came here to keep you from death. That makes us even.” Seth spoke the words in a low voice, but the faeries near them were Hounds. Their hearing was better than most, and at this distance, it was no challenge to listen.

  Consequently, Keenan didn’t try to lower his voice. “Killing you wasn’t the right course of action then. If you had died, she would mourn—which she did anyhow when you were in Faerie.” Keenan stepped closer to Seth. Anger that he’d not been able to completely purge filled him. “You left. By choice. She mourned your absence for months. She was in pain, and I was her friend. I waited. I was only her friend for months.”

  “During which you knew I was in Faerie.”

  Keenan shrugged and immediately decided not to do that again. Carefully keeping the pain from his voice, he said, “If killing you would’ve resolved the situation, I’d have done it. If you stayed in Faerie or got yourself killed, it would’ve been your choice. Why would I cross Sorcha for a mortal I’d rather see out of my way?”

  “I get that, but I’m not a mortal now.” Seth bared his teeth in a decidedly not-mortal expression.

  “But you’re still in my way.”

  “Right back at you,” Seth muttered.

  They stood silently for several moments; then Seth shook his head. “You need to go to Ash now, and I need to go to Niall. . . . I am Sorcha’s heir, and”—he looked embarrassed for a moment—“that means that I’m not free to do only what I want.”

  “None of us are,” the Summer King said. Then he turned away, moving at a speed that made the mortals he passed clutch their coats and brush hair from their eyes. Some looked around curiously, seeking the source of the gusts of wind that sent dust swirling into the air.

  Chapter 16

  Whatever slight tether Niall had had to stability had vanished. Time slipped in and out of order. He walked into a rarely used room. Faeries crawled through debris. A fire burned, consuming what appeared to be a sofa or perhaps a small bed. It was hard to tell with the smoke. Obviously there had been a fight of some sort.

  Were we attacked?

  “Bar the doors.” He drew a knife from a sheath on his ankle and looked around the shambles of the room. “Set guards at every window.”

  “We did,” a trembling thistle-fey said. Something had happened to the faery: his arm was bent the wrong way.

  “She’s not in the house? Bananach?”

  “No, my King,” another faery assured him. “She isn’t here.”

  “I won’t let her hurt you.” Niall looked around at the battered faeries in the room. “None of you will leave.”

  “Yes, my King,” they said.

  He could feel their fear, their worry, and their desperation. It filled the room as thickly as the smoke from the smoldering furniture. The Dark King drew in their emotions, trying to fill whatever void had opened up inside of him. He considered asking them when the court had been attacked, but revealing his missing memories wouldn’t help his court.

  Protect them, a voice urged.

  Niall nodded. He wasn’t sure if he could, but he knew better than to show doubts. He blinked, and when he looked, he was in another room. A new group of battered faeries stood waiting. Two Hounds were in front of the faeries.

  “Niall?” Gabriel came into the room. “Should I go get her?”

  “Her?”

  “Leslie has a right to know. He’d want her to know, but I can’t do everything.” Gabriel held out his forearms. They were covered in so much ink that they were unreadable. Words layered atop words; oghams blurred and moved.

  Niall didn’t remember issuing so many orders.

  “You can’t do everything,” Niall repeated. “Things . . . other things . . . There are other things.”

  “Yes. Wise call, my King. I’ll send another Hound.” Gabriel’s relief washed over Niall. “And I can stay here for you and Iri.”

  “Irial . . . He’s here?” Niall looked around. Something about that was wrong; something was wrong with Irial.

  Gabriel stepped into Niall’s line of vision again, blocking out the sight of the faeries, who cringed when Niall’s gaze fe
ll on them. “Probably need to send a few faeries to keep Leslie safe.”

  Niall’s gaze snapped to Gabriel’s face. “Leslie . . . yes. We need to protect Leslie. There’s danger. Bananach . . . she . . . Bananach . . .”

  Images collided in Niall’s mind. Bananach had a sword-knife-talons-beak-knife. The Dark King blinked and repeated, “Leslie needs protection.”

  But Gabriel wasn’t there. No one was there. He was in a room of shadows and smoke. Walls of darkness encircled him, and the Dark King couldn’t remember why. He walked through them, crossing the barrier of darkness and wandering through the house.

  A sharp pain made him look down, and he realized that he’d lost something. It was in the house, but as Niall walked he couldn’t remember what it was or why he needed it. The house was in a state of destruction. How will I find anything? He looked around and saw a faery who appeared to be clinging to the wall.

  “Did you bar the doors?”

  “Yes, my King.” The faery swallowed audibly. “And the windows.”

  “Good.” Niall nodded. “She won’t get in. You will tell the others to stay inside. I can’t protect you if you . . . Someone should tell Leslie. Where is Gabriel? My orders . . . I have orders for Gabriel.”

  Chapter 17

  Keenan opened the door and stared at her and only her. His queen looked as regal as any ruler he’d known. Her chin lifted. Her gaze was on him—not welcoming, but judging. Her once blue-black hair had sun streaks as if she’d lived at the beach, and within her eyes he could see a hurricane in motion. She still wore common clothes—jeans and a simple shirt—as she had when she was a mortal, but her bearing made them the clothes of royalty. Sun sparks of emotion danced over her skin. The tiny bursts of light made her seem to flicker like the sun itself.

  She didn’t rise to greet him. Instead, she sat in judgment within the study that had been his retreat. It, like most everything else, was hers now; his court, his advisors, the struggle of correcting the court’s weaknesses, the challenge of finding balance—they all belonged to the Summer Queen as much as to him.

  In the hallway beyond him, several of the Summer Girls sighed, and others started dancing. Keenan smiled at them briefly before returning his attention to the Summer Queen. Unlike his dancing Summer Girls, the queen was not smiling.

  At all.

  “Nice of you to remember where we live,” she said.

  “I needed a little time. . . .”

  “Almost six months?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  As he approached his queen, sunlight flared from his skin. It wasn’t by choice; the sunlight inside of him burned brighter because of her. The king and the queen were drawn together. Attraction without love. It was the final piece of Beira’s curse. Keenan hadn’t realized how much he wanted an all-consuming love until the past year. He’d spent so long looking for her that he’d assumed they’d be perfect together. She was his missing partner; how could it be otherwise?

  “Did you get my message that quickly? If I had known that’s all it took, I’d have sent word of the court’s predicament sooner.” Aislinn didn’t look away from him as she asked, and Keenan saw in her the queen he’d sought for so many centuries. She was bold where she had once been tentative, aggressive with him in defense of their court as she’d once been for her then-mortal beloved.

  “I received no message,” he admitted. “I came back because it was time.”

  The gleam in her eyes flashed brightly. “At least there’s that.”

  “I . . .” he started, but he had no words, not when she looked at him with a tangle of hope and anger. He wasn’t sure if he should ask what message she’d sent or not, but as sunlight shimmered around her in a light show to rival the aurora borealis, he decided the question could wait.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “You left me . . . our court. Do you have any idea what’s been going on?”

  “I do. I had reports, and I knew”—he sat on the sofa beside her—“I was able to stay away because the court was safe in your hands.”

  “You abandoned your court to do who knows w—” She turned to face him and gasped.

  She reached out with one hand. She slid her thumb across his cheek. “You’re injured.”

  Keenan pulled her hand away from his face.

  “It’ll wait. Come with me,” he said softly, not a command—

  because she is the queen—but something more than a request.

  He stood, but she remained where she was.

  “Please?” he urged.

  After a glance at the faeries who waited outside the room, Aislinn stood. Keenan put his arm around her waist, and happy murmurs filtered through the loft. With Aislinn at his side, Keenan walked down the hallway to his rooms.

  At the door, a faery bowed.

  Keenan nodded and led Aislinn across the threshold.

  Once the door had closed behind them, she pulled away. “That wasn’t fair.”

  He winced as she elbowed him in his injured side. “Holding you, or letting them believe I intend to return to where we were when I left?”

  “Either.”

  “Aislinn?” He walked toward her. “I need you.”

  He stripped off his shirt.

  She stared at him, and he felt the temperature in the room spike.

  “Keenan? What are you . . . I can’t . . .”

  “I need your help.” He tossed the shirt against the wall and lifted his arm. By peeling the shirt off, he’d reopened the gashes from Bananach’s talons. Blood trickled over his side.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were this badly injured?” Aislinn was beside him in an instant. Without thinking of the consequences, she laid one hand on his stomach and her other on his arm. “Who did this?”

  “Bananach.” He let her push his arm out of the way so that she could see the ugly wounds. “She and three others cornered me.”

  He silently apologized to Donia for what he was about to do, but the Summer Court would never be strong enough to survive the coming war if he didn’t force a change. I need my queen. My court needs this. For a faery king, he’d been patient since Aislinn had become queen. No more.

  He looked at his queen. “Help me?”

  She hadn’t moved away yet, but she had pulled her hands from him. “What do you need?”

  He twisted to look at the injury and held his arm out from his body. “It needs to be cleaned, and—never mind.” He stepped away. “I can do it myself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Aislinn scowled.

  He hid his smile. “If you’re sure . . .”

  “What do I clean it with?”

  Keenan pointed toward a cabinet and winced. “There’s cleaning supplies on the top shelf.”

  His queen opened the cabinet and stretched up, balancing on her toes.

  “Can you reach them?” Keenan followed and used the excuse to put his hands on her waist. The pain of the toxins in his body was starting to make him feel weak, but he wasn’t yet at the point of exhaustion.

  “Got it.” She pulled down the box of medicinal supplies and spun around so that she was facing him. “Why do you have these in here?”

  “My mother used to take pleasure in injuring me every time I told her about the girl I thought could be my”—he touched her face with his hand, trapping her between him and the wall—“who could be you. I didn’t like the court to see my injuries.”

  “Oh.” She took a steadying breath and then exhaled—against his bare skin.

  He shivered at the feel of her breath, letting her see his reaction, showing her that he was far from immune to her, and then before she could ask him to move, he turned and walked away. Tease and retreat. He’d done this so many times that it was frightfully easy to slip into the role. I hate it. He pushed the distaste away. The court comes first. An unhappy regent was a weak regent; a weak regent created a weak court. We cannot be weak.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Is it easier if I stand or sit?”<
br />
  “Your back is bruised too.” She walked up behind him and laid her hand flat between his shoulder blades. “Do we need a healer?”

  “You can heal me,” he reminded her. He turned so they were face-to-face again. “After you clean the wounds, if you choose to, you could erase these injuries.”

  “It’s not that easy.” She started to back away.

  He caught her hand and held it against his skin. As his sunlight pulsed and drew out her light, he slid her hand toward his injured side. “All you need to do is touch me and let your sunlight make me stronger. I need you, Aislinn.”

  “When I do . . . I would if it were life threatening, but . . .” She blushed and tugged her hand free of his. “You’re not being fair. You know what it feels like.”

  “I do. It feels right.”

  She opened the medical box and pulled out an antiseptic wipe. “Sit.”

  He did so, and she leaned down and wiped the blood from his skin. She was careful as she cleaned the four gouges in his side. When she was done, she asked, “They look worse than they feel, right?”

  “No,” he admitted. He put his right arm behind him to brace himself. “She’s War. Her touch is always worse than most faeries, and right now, she’s strong.”

  Aislinn’s attempt at self-control faltered. Wind snapped through the room as her instinctual protectiveness flared to life.

  “But you seemed fine in the study and”—she shook her head—“you were ignoring that, despite being in real pain, to explain to me. I thought we came in here because you were being . . .”

  “Assertive?” he offered. “I was, but I didn’t want them to see me weakened, Aislinn. You know that they are already tentative. I’ll not show them anything that gives them doubts. My duty is to them. It has been so since I was born.”

  Silently, she sat beside him and splayed one hand over the still-bleeding cuts. Pulses of sunlight slipped into his torn skin, burning the darkness of War’s poison from his body. He closed his eyes against both the pain and the pleasure. He wasn’t sure at first if Aislinn realized there were toxins inside him that she was destroying, but when he opened his eyes, she was staring at him. She’d felt the poisons, knew what he’d hidden: if she’d not helped him in time, he could’ve died.