by Melissa Marr
“Exactly,” Niall said.
They stood at an impasse. Keenan clung to his hatred of Irial, but he was relieved that Niall was speaking to him civilly.
Niall walked away, and Keenan followed him farther into the wreckage of the Dark King’s home. The destruction was somewhat expected: he’d known that Niall wasn’t dealing well with his grief. What was unexpected was the sight that greeted him as they entered what appeared to have been a study: in the doorway stood the mortal who had been the source of Niall’s ire at Keenan.
“What is he doing here?” Leslie folded her arms over her chest.
The Dark King turned his back to Keenan. “Les? I thought you were still sleeping.”
The mortal marched across the room with a self-
confidence utterly at odds with the broken spirit he’d last seen in her. She stepped in front of Niall, putting herself between the two faeries, and pointed at Keenan. “Don’t you upset him.”
Keenan held up his hands disarmingly.
“He’s . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at Niall, and her ferocity vanished. “He’s going to be fine. He’s already much clearer today, so you can just walk out of here.”
“Les?”
She looked at the Dark King.
“Did you know?” he asked. “About Iri?”
“That he died?” Leslie took Niall’s arm and led him farther away from Keenan. “You told me, but I knew when I got here.” She shot a glare back at Keenan. “We talked about this. When you woke up, Niall, you were better than before. You weren’t thinking right because of fatigue, but it’s better. You’re better, and I’m going to stay a few days, help you get settled with the . . . things that he handled.”
“He’s not dead,” Niall told her. “He’s still here. Keenan said—”
“Get out,” Leslie snarled at Keenan. She stepped away from the Dark King faster than a mortal should be able to move and advanced on Keenan. “He’s upset, and whatever you did or said made him worse—”
“Irial is inside Niall,” Keenan said.
“Get out!” Leslie grabbed Keenan’s shirt and started to tug him toward the door. “Get out. Stay out. Just leave us alone.”
“Shadow Girl? Leslie, love?” Irial-Niall grabbed her hand and tugged her away from Keenan. The Dark King kept hold of her as he turned her to face him. “The kingling is telling the truth. I couldn’t tell you last night. I wanted to, but there are rules.”
“Iri?” Leslie gaped at the Dark King. “Honestly?”
“I’m here.” He pulled her into his arms. “I’ve been here since I died. Every moment.”
“Iri . . . oh gods, I thought . . . He . . .” She leaned against him, and whatever she said next was muffled against his chest—or Niall’s chest, in actuality.
“Far Dorcha is still in town because of you,” Keenan announced. The missing detail suddenly became clear. The head of the death-fey had come to Huntsdale because of the peculiarity of Irial’s state of death.
As Irial-Niall turned, he kept one arm around Leslie, and for an odd moment, Keenan wasn’t entirely sure which of them was currently in possession of the Dark King’s body. “Yes.”
Leslie looked at Irial-Niall. “Who?”
“Death,” Keenan answered. He sat down on the edge of a relatively clean table near the unlit fireplace. “I will do whatever Niall needs, but we have to have a plan. Far Dorcha can’t stay in town. Bananach is already trouble enough.”
“Her,” Leslie muttered. “She needs to die an ugly death.”
“My bloodthirsty girl.” Irial smiled at Leslie, and the proud darkness in that smile made quite clear that it was the former Dark King in control.
Leslie scowled. “I’m not bloodthirsty, but . . . seriously, she killed you. She needs to be dead.”
“Except killing her could kill every faery, love,” Irial pointed out. He glanced at Keenan and added in a level voice, “That’s the problem. It’s the only reason our boy hasn’t gone after her. Perhaps you might take it up with your ex-queen’s . . . What is he?”
“Ex-queen?” Leslie’s eyes widened. “Ash isn’t Summer Queen now?”
“She is,” Keenan said. “I’m no longer Summer King, though.”
Leslie leaned her head against the Dark King’s shoulder. “How about we start at the beginning?”
Irial tilted her chin up so that he could stare at her. “In a moment.”
Without looking at Keenan, Irial made a shooing gesture with one hand.
And Keenan walked out to give them their privacy. He’d only left the Summer Court a day ago, but embracing his Winter Court nature meant that the complicated relationships of the Dark Court were unsettling now. After centuries of spending much of his free time pursuing girl after girl, the idea of eternity with only one faery was his sole desire.
Before he could begin that eternity, Keenan needed to help his former advisor—and the dead faery who’d once helped bind Summer—figure out how to nullify Bananach, and convince Far Dorcha to depart.
Keenan sighed.
No problem.
Chapter 33
A block from the Dark Court’s warehouse, Chela held up one gloved hand. Three faery messengers and one Hound directly behind her paused. She told the messengers, “Obey him.”
The messengers nodded.
“Once they’re gone,” she told the Hound, “you will fight, but until the messengers go, you wait.”
The thought of missing any of the battle obviously wasn’t appealing to the Hound. His scowl deepened, but he nodded. “I’ll make up for lost minutes, Gabr—Chela.”
“I know you will, Eachann. Gabriel will be pleased when he comes back,” Chela said, and then she urged her steed, Alba, forward. No one would declare her mate dead if she could hold even a sliver of hope.
Some Hounds are daft, Alba muttered in her mind.
Instead of answering, Chela urged aloud, “Faster.”
In only a matter of seconds, Alba battered down the warehouse door with his front paws. Unlike her mate’s steed, Chela’s shifted shapes the way some people changed clothes. Alba wasn’t frivolous, merely awkward with emotions. He chose to express his feelings with his shape. The fact that their Gabriel was missing meant that Alba was leonine, feral and ready to hunt.
Me too, Alba. She stroked one hand over her steed’s close-cropped fur, and then she extended her voice to the rest of the Hunt and added, No mercy if Gabriel is . . . gone.
None of the Hounds replied, but they all knew that their Gabriel was either dead or severely injured. As his second, Chela wouldn’t be able to communicate nonverbally with the pack if he were safe. She held hope, though. She and Gabriel might have had a few difficulties—including those over his tendency to sire half-mortal children during their times apart over the years—but they were as faithful as Hounds ever were.
He is not dead yet, she told Alba once again. If the words were lies, I couldn’t speak them.
Her steed was too kind to remind her that opinion didn’t follow the truth rule, but they both knew it. If Gabriel was gone, she’d do what she must. Gone or not, he’d been injured enough that she was acting in his stead.
She will suffer, Alba growled. We will not stand down.
The faery courts had let things go too long. The Hunt had no such patience. Gabriel had pursued Bananach. That told them where their Gabriel stood on the issue of striking War.
We will finish the fight our Gabriel began, Chela told them all as they followed her into the Dark Court’s warehouse.
They were silent as they saw confirmation of one of the fears that had brought them here: Bananach sat on the regent’s throne. The raven-faery snapped her beak at them as the Hunt continued to thunder into the vast room. She stayed spine-straight, ankles crossed and hands dangling carelessly over the arms of the black throne. Her wings curled forward on either side, so she appeared to be surrounded by a giant shield.
All around her, Ly Ergs and unfamiliar faeries waited. A few Dark Court faeries were i
n the crowd, but they did their best to duck behind others as the Hunt poured in. Sparks glimmered in the shadows as the steeds’ claws, hooves, and talons struck the cement floor.
Stay mounted, Chela ordered.
Where is the Dark King? one of her Hounds asked.
Seth is caged, another reported. Left and above the throne. Birdcage.
Is Seth injured? Chela asked.
Yet another Hound replied, Can’t tell. Not moving. Think he’s alive, though.
If he is dead, it’s recent, said the first Hound.
Despite the flurry of reports that joined these in her head, Chela’s outward expression was implacable. She faced War, who had apparently staged a coup.
Straight up the center, Alba.
Chela’s steed stalked toward the raven-faery.
“Gabriela!” Bananach crooned. “Have you come to show your support of your queen?”
Chela stared directly at Bananach. “I am Chela, mate to the Gabriel, second-in-command of this Hunt.”
“You are Gabriela, and I am the Dark Queen . . . and this”—Bananach opened her arms wide—“is my court.”
“No. There is no Dark Queen,” Chela ground out.
Underneath her, Alba growled his accord. The assembled faeries—the whole mutinous lot of them—shifted nervously as other steeds and Hounds echoed Alba’s growl.
“Yet here I am.” Bananach paused as if confused. “No, I’m sure of it. I am the queen here, and I could use the Hunt. As I killed him—the last Gabriel—that would be your decision, Gabriela.”
Gabriel is dead. My mate. Chela’s hand tightened on the hilt of the first sword her mate had given her. She drew it from the scabbard with a slide of metal on metal.
Draw weapons, she demanded.
As the Hunt complied, Chela lifted her voice and her sword: “The Hunt, with Gabriel at the helm or with me, will stand with the Dark King. If you are here with this imposter”—Chela did not look at the assembled fey, but instead sneered at Bananach—“you are declared enemy to the Hunt.”
“You challenge me, whelp?” Bananach tilted her head to one side and then to the other as if studying Chela.
“Do you declare yourself queen of this court?”
“I do,” Bananach said.
“Then the Hunt challenges you.” Chela added silently to her Hunt, On my word . . . Ready . . .
“Fair warning,” Chela said aloud. “The Hunt comes here as sworn support of the rightful regent of the Dark Court. Stand against us, and be found our enemy.”
She focused on each of them, marking their faces and scents in her mind.
Know them. Remember them, she told the Hunt. They stood with the one who killed our Gabriel, who killed his daughter, who killed Irial. No mercy. No survivors.
The bemused expression on Bananach’s face was unfaltering. She looked only at Chela, but she told the assembled traitors, “You’ve sworn fealty to me, and I’ve spoken War. They stand with our enemies, and as your queen, I order you: kill them all.”
Now, Chela growled to her Hunt.
Then Bananach launched herself at Chela in a blur of feathers and talons, and there were no more words.
Hounds and faeries and steeds filled the Dark Court’s warehouse with screams and blood. Bodies crashed together in a fight that had been too long in coming.
Send the messengers for the faery courts. This is the end.
Chapter 34
Keenan had just listened to Niall and Irial explain that because of Faerie being closed they could—possibly—kill Bananach. Everyone knew that Bananach wasn’t going to stop, but killing her on the basis of the new seer’s word . . . that was a bit of a leap.
“I’m not sure we can kill her. She’s strong,” Irial pointed out. “She killed me and cut through Devlin like he was untrained. We’ve got us, the Hounds, and those we can round up from the other courts.”
“Could we contain her?” Keenan asked.
Before anyone could reply, one of the thistle-fey came into the wreckage-strewn room unannounced. “My King!” He half pushed, half dragged another faery in front of him. “War has come.”
Before they could reply, the faery that had been shoved into the room said, “The Hunt has begun the battle, Your Majesties.” He looked from Niall to Keenan and back to Niall. “The Huntswoman sent us to each of the three courts. The fight . . . Bananach sits on your throne, has declared herself Dark Queen.”
“She what?” Niall—or perhaps Irial—asked.
Keenan repressed a shiver at the darkness in that voice. He’d seen Niall angry, understood the horrible depths that both kings were capable of separately, and now wondered what it would mean to have both of those tempers in the same body.
“We have our answer.” Niall-Irial stood. The Dark King caught Leslie’s hand, and the terrible darkness vanished. “Will you stay here? If things . . .”
“I’ll be here. Not forever, but for a couple days until everything is sorted out.” The mortal girl embraced the Dark King. “Go kick her ass.”
With something like awe in his expression, the Dark King—whichever of them—looked at Leslie and then kissed her briefly.
He turned to Keenan. “Will you fight? Or now that you have no sunlight . . . are you able?”
Instead of answering, Keenan let winter fill his eyes as he looked at the Dark King. “I am not skilled with this element, but I am not exactly defenseless.”
Irial—because that dry tone was clearly not Niall—said, “Well, wouldn’t Beira be . . . shocked?”
“No.” Keenan shook his head. “She knew all along what I could do. I chose to be Summer, and she knew it every day of my life.”
The Dark King smiled. “Your father would’ve been proud.”
Keenan paused and admitted, “I hope so. . . . Niall?”
“No. . . . That was Irial.” Niall shook his head. “I hear him when he speaks now. I hear him speaking in my head to only me, and I hear him when he speaks to you with . . . through me.”
Keenan stared at Niall. “Can you fight like this?”
“I can. I feel better now than I have since he died.” Niall frowned. “I don’t know if it’s from sleeping or knowing he’s still with me or . . .” Niall’s words faded as he put aside whatever thoughts he was trying to make sense of. He looked at Keenan. “Donia knows about your capacity for Winter?”
“She was the only one alive who did know until now.” Keenan looked around the room. The mortal, the Dark Kings, the messenger, and the thistle-fey all stared back at him, and the former Summer King felt like a carnival curiosity. “Do we have a plan?”
“Weapons,” Niall called. “We fight War. Now.”
Dark Court faeries came trooping into the room as if utterly unconcerned by the king’s declaration that they were going to fight War. One tossed a halberd to—or possibly at—Keenan. They were nothing like the faeries he had been surrounded by his whole life. Several of them paused to smile at the mortal girl; Leslie sat peacefully in their midst as if they weren’t loathsome. None of the thistle-fey touched her, but most every faery that crossed the threshold beamed at the sight of her, and many of the not-painful-to-touch faeries stroked her cheek or arm as they passed her. Through it all, Leslie said nothing.
The messenger looked far less at ease.
The messenger . . .
Keenan passed the halberd off to a thistle-fey and grabbed the messenger. “Go to the water, the river, and tell them that the bestia brings deaths. Tell them that Innis promised to aid me. Go.”
The Dark King hefted a broadsword. “You weren’t merely out sulking after all.”
A group of three faeries came in with arms full of
weapons—many bloodstained—and tossed them onto the floor. Other faeries sifted through the weapons. The flow of armed faeries started toward the street. They were chortling and grinning.
The messenger fled, and Keenan shrugged. “Having allies seemed wise.”
“Are we allies now, kingling?�
�
“I’m not a king, but I will fight with the Dark Court and any of those who stand against Bananach, and not”—Keenan stared directly at the Dark King and grabbed several throwing knives from the stack of weapons—“because of a threat by either of you.”
“You are your father’s son,” Irial remarked.
Keenan looked back at the faery who had bound him, who now possessed the king he’d offered to advise. “I won’t ever like you, but my father saw something worthwhile in you, and so does Niall. Summer will, undoubtedly, be there, and I know Winter will.”
“Then let’s move so we’re not last to the party.”
“My Queen!” Tavish’s voice rang through the loft.
Aislinn felt as much as heard the panic bloom in her seemingly imperturbable advisor. She hurriedly pulled a sundress over her head, but she was barefoot when she rushed to the main room of the loft. The onslaught of full Summer inside of her made it hard to stand still, so at the least, the burst of speed to her advisor’s side was refreshing.
“What’s wrong?”
“A messenger arrived, my Queen.” Tavish was moving toward her even as he spoke, and he stood at her side before he continued, “The war has begun.”
The messenger flinched and turned her face from the flash of light that filled the room. New powers; not really the best time to go diving into battles. Aislinn sighed, and eddies of wind tore books from the shelves. With effort, she spoke softly. “Where? Who fights?”
“The Dark Court’s warehouse, my lady.” The doe-eyed faery moved aside as a torn bit of curtain floated to the floor beside her. “The Hunt started the fight when Bananach declared herself Dark Queen . . . and the Gabriela bade me tell you that War has Seth.”
“She has Seth,” Aislinn repeated, with a stillness that was the polar opposite of her emotions. “Has him how? Where?”
“In a cage.” The faery stepped backward even as she spoke. “Gabriela—”
“Gabriela?” Tavish interrupted.
“Hound that was Chela. The Gabriel’s dead, so she’s Gabriela.” The faery shivered as rain filled the room. “I am blameless, Summer Queen.”