Runa, Velka, and Otama ran to her without another word. Aesa bit her lip, torn. Gilka could die in this fight. Runa could die and Hilfey and Otama and Velka. All of them, but Aesa had started down a path, and now she had to see the end of it.
Even if it meant the death of those she cared about?
She felt a touch upon her arm and looked into Hilfey’s face. “Do what you must.”
“Hilfey—”
“Bear cub, when you discovered Ulfrecht’s and Gilka’s deception, I knew this day would come. We told Gilka she shouldn’t have done such a thing, shouldn’t have started a new crew member with such dishonesty, but she’s always been stubborn, part of what makes her a good thrain.” She shrugged. “I must stay, and you must go.”
Aesa hugged her once, and then she followed Maeve out one of the doors and deeper into this house of the fae.
Chapter Twenty-six
Laret rubbed her aching head and wondered why Ari hadn’t killed her. Had the witch of Sanaan ordered her not to? Did she want Laret to keep chasing her for some reason, even if Laret managed to find a way out? Perhaps she thought starving to death underground a more fitting end than being killed by blood magic.
Laret could nearly hear the witch’s cackle. She’d been old when Laret had left, always complaining about some ailment or another. How much hatred lived in her heart that she would train another to dog Laret’s trail? Enough anger and bile to sustain her, at least. And Ari hadn’t been on Laret’s trail, not exactly. It was either coincidence that they’d run into each other, or the witch of Sanaan had known where Laret’s travels had taken her, had known she and Ari might encounter each other in the far north.
Where else could she find houri blood but this island, so close to the fierce northern raiders? But what could she possibly want with…
“By the True God,” Laret whispered. The witch of Sanaan’s obsession with the houri finally became clear. Age held the answer; she sought youth through their blood, maybe even immortality. When Laret had known her, she’d only left her hard little house under great duress, if she heard of any houri artifacts nearby. Even then, for their arduous descent into the houri cavern, Laret had to carry the witch on her back. If the witch was young again, she’d be free to go forth and curse at will, just as she had in her youth.
Laret swore and searched for a way out. No torches had fallen with her, but soft light surrounded her nonetheless. It came from a hallway that intersected this one, and she stepped that way slowly, listening for any noise.
The hall ended in another round room, smaller than the one above, but this had a glowing sphere hovering in the middle, perched above a perfect circle cut in the rock. No strings led from the top of the sphere, no pillar supported it. Pale smoke roiled within, sending shadows racing through the glow. Water sloshed in the circle underneath, filling the space with the salty tang of seawater. Magic permeated the room, and Laret feared sending her spirit forth, remembering how Ari’s curse had ensnared Maeve. But this wasn’t the work of blood magic.
Or was it? There had to be a reason she could feel houri magic better than Maeve. Well, one way to find out. She pushed her spirit out slowly and sensed…everything.
The sphere drew her spirit forward, showing her the island above her, the plants and flowers, towering trees, each tiny patch of moss. She sensed the people walking upon its surface and the beasts that called it home.
It pulled her further, seeking to suck her in, make her one with it. She focused on the plants, and they centered her, keeping blackness from her vision as she merged her spirit with theirs. Her wyrd awaited her call, the chance to move all the island’s plants at once.
She resisted that call, not knowing what it might do. Slowly, she returned to her body, just in time to see the flat of a blade coming for the side of her head.
*
Ell reached to stop Niall but too late. He smacked the side of his sword into the red-eyed woman’s skull, and she collapsed to the floor. “What are you doing?” Ell cried. “This is Aesa’s friend.”
“We can’t trust these people, Ell. That’s why we’re getting rid of them.” He stepped over her and leaned forward, examining the ball of glowing gray smoke.
Ell knelt with some of the other fini at the downed woman’s side. She was still breathing, at least. “Get rid of them how?”
“I saw something when I was connected with the aos sí, something about this room.” He peered into the circle of water. “This is where the source of the magic comes from. The aos sí thought something must have gone wrong with the barrier that surrounds the island, or the invaders would never have gotten inside. Even aos sí magic shouldn’t have broken it.”
Ell paused, her heart fluttering. “And it will make the invaders leave?” No more killing. No more Aesa.
He looked over his shoulder. “They’ll have to leave or risk being trapped here forever. Or maybe there’s some way to kill them all. Isn’t that what you want, or are you thinking of that woman?”
She stood and shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t want her hurt.”
“They’re going to kill us all!”
She wanted to say, “Kill all shaptis, maybe,” but she couldn’t be sure that was true anymore. Aesa might not kill fini, but her people would. Even if she convinced most of them to leave the fini alone, there would always be a few who reveled in slaughter, just like some shaptis. “How can we make them leave?”
He gave her a triumphant look. “Someone has to go inside and issue the command.”
“Inside?” It didn’t look big enough to hold people. “Who can command it, an aos sí?”
“No. One of the reasons they bred us is so they’d have someone to do the dangerous work.”
“It’s dangerous, then?”
“Deadly.”
She held her breath, seeing him as never before, as someone who genuinely wanted to help. “You’d do this for us?”
By the way his eyes widened, she knew she’d made a mistake. “I thought…” His glance flicked to the fini, and she felt her own face tighten. Her disgust must have shown. “Ell, I—”
She fought the urge to spit in his face. “For all your words—”
“A sacrifice must be made!”
“You still want to use them.”
“One death for the good of many!”
“From a person who doesn’t know what you’re asking!” she shouted. “You didn’t even think to ask me. You would command one of those who can’t think for herself.”
“Well, not command…”
“Oh,” she said, drawing the word out and filling it with contempt. “You would use some honeyed words, would you? Allow the poor fini the ecstasy of obedience before she dies. How very kind.”
His brow darkened, eyes flashing, and she was suddenly aware that he was armed, and she was not. She tried to keep the fear from her face but didn’t know if she was able, not this time.
“Sacrifices must be made,” he said again. Gone was the argument, the placating tone. This had all the arrogant command of a shapti. He moved past her, toward the fini clustered around the red-eyed woman, and Ell knew he was going to lift one up and hurl her into the sphere if he had to.
Chezzo looked back and forth between them, awaiting a command. Would he obey her if she told him to attack Niall? Did she even want to find out? She looked to the sphere. A sacrifice had to be made, it seemed, and she was the only fini capable of making a true choice.
Niall cried out as she stepped into the sphere, joined by other voices, as if the cavern cried out with him.
*
Maeve grabbed for Aesa’s arm as Ell walked into an uncertain future, the large dog following her into the sphere. It didn’t matter if it was a ball of magic or a field of slaughter, Aesa would always follow friends or loved ones who hurled themselves into danger, and Maeve knew it.
But just as she knew Aesa, Aesa knew her, knew she’d try to stop Aesa from leaping into oblivion. As Maeve grabbed, Aesa twisted out
of the way and ran for the sphere, disappearing just as Ell did, in a flash of light.
A guard lifted his sword and turned. Maeve dropped her cloak without thinking. Something about seeing Aesa disappear after everything they’d been through brought the bear to the fore.
The guard tried to slow his charge, and Maeve had a moment to wonder why he seemed to have his wits when the others had gone insane. Then she hit him, and he bounced across the cavern floor, rolling near the circle of water and leaving a trail of blood behind.
Some of the fini scampered back, revealing Laret crumpled on the floor.
With a blink, Maeve came back to her human self and knelt at Laret’s side. Some of the fini spoke to her. She barely sensed it when they draped the cloak back over her shoulders. Her spirit was already mingling with Laret’s beautiful essence and healing the wounds she found there.
Laret came awake with a start, calling, “Don’t!” When she saw Maeve, she blinked like a sleeper awakening from a nightmare. “What happened?”
“Aesa and Ell went into the sphere.”
Laret looked to it in amazement. “Did they say why?”
Maeve nearly laughed, but worry had too tight of a grip on her. “Ell walked in as we got here, and like a fool, Aesa followed.”
Laret stood. “My spirit almost got sucked in by it. It’s as if the entire island is in there.”
Maeve hovered her hand near the surface and felt gentle warmth as well as the tang of alien magic, but this felt like life, not death. There was a chance, then, to save Aesa and Ell both. “Perhaps if we merge our powers?”
Laret smiled and held out her hand. Maeve grabbed hold, and together, they sent their spirits over the sphere.
The first time they’d used their powers together, Maeve had been trapped, panicked and fighting for her life. Now she could enjoy the feel of Laret’s spirit merging with her own, of their magic coupling as their bodies had. It brought happy memories that made her sigh, and she felt the warmth of Laret’s spirit brighten in return.
A spiritual blush. It delighted her. She focused on the sphere, feeling what Laret said about the island, about the power trying to make them one with it. It was a created land, or so altered by magic it might as well have been. Magic infused every living thing, changing the creatures that prowled its shores, allowing the merging of fae and human bodies to create the guards, a people as attached to Fernagher as the fae.
She felt past the life to the great barrier, the Mists of Murin, which were supposed to keep everything out that wasn’t fae and keep the fini, the food source, inside. With her healer’s powers, Maeve felt all the lives connected to this place. The whole island needed healing, needed to be free. And she could do it, she knew, with Laret beside her, their mingled spirits giving them power over all life.
*
Silence surrounded Aesa, making the blood roar in her ears. She’d run into the sphere, but now she stood beneath a stone archway, looking at a massive cavern, the walls carved with the likenesses of fae, even larger than the real thing. These stared down at her, unblinking, with unfeeling mouths. Lichen crawled across their stony bodies and across the floor and ceiling, lighting the place with an eerie blue glow that cast deep pockets of shadow among the rocks. Giant mushrooms dotted the floor, and tiny lizards ran along their moist, smooth edges to disappear into cracks in the earth.
“Aesa?”
She turned slowly, afraid to move. She’d traveled somewhere, but she didn’t know how.
Ell stood behind her, Chezzo at her side. Aesa let out a slow breath. She opened her arms, and Ell moved into them, staring around the room with the wide-eyed awe that Aesa felt. “Why did we come here? How do we get back?”
Ell pointed behind her at a large pond only a few steps away, and they moved that way together. Water, everything started and ended with water on Fernagher, from the pools that stole fini minds to those that sustained the fae. And now here was another source, but for what?
Her back itched under the weight of the statues’ stares, and though they stepped quietly, every tiny sound bounced from the walls. The water glowed softly, and Aesa couldn’t help bracing herself, but when she looked in, she gasped. She saw Fernagher from as high as a spirit might. Clouds swirled across her vision, and waves broke on the tiny beach below. Dark green trees sat in clumps, and the lighter patches of grass surrounded tiny brown village clusters.
Just before the dark blue of the ocean ended, melding back into the cavern pond, sat the gray barrier, the Mists of Murin. It flickered, as if threatening to go out, and Aesa bet that if Gilka had waited a few more years, she might have been able to sail inside without having to depend on fae magic.
Not that Gilka would have waited.
A shadow flitted over the image, something coming between the pond and the light. Aesa grabbed Ell and tugged her behind one of the giant mushrooms, Chezzo following, ears pricked as if he sensed the same threat she did.
Something glided over the ceiling, as large as a fae. When it slithered to the floor, rearing to rest on a mushroom, she thought it might be one of the lizard horses, but this had six legs. It tilted its snout higher, sniffing the air.
It opened its mouth, and Aesa tensed, but to her disbelief, it said something in a deep bass rumble that Aesa felt in her core. She caught the word fini and looked to Ell, shaking her head, but Ell stepped out from behind the mushroom and bowed deeply.
*
Ell tried to control her shivering, but her body wouldn’t obey her. When the giant, krissi-like thing pinned its gaze on her, she nearly dropped to her knees.
“I smelled your presence,” it said. “Why have you come here, fini?”
“I…” If it knew about the invaders or the attack on the aos sí, it didn’t say. “A shapti commanded it.”
The creature slithered closer, quick on its multitude of legs. It pulled up before Ell, rearing, and she fell back, thinking it was going to strike. Chezzo leapt to her side, barking, but she held him away from those massive jaws.
The creature shimmered, blurring into an aos sí as large as those in the cavern, but this one was dry, her hair pulled under a helmet, away from her sharp-featured face. A sheet of metal covered her torso like a tunic, molded over two breasts. She wore a kilt of overlapping metal plates and carried an enormous sword on her hip. One gold ring shone from her pointed left ear and two sparkled in her right. Her golden stare swept over the cavern. “Something has gone wrong, or your kind wouldn’t be here.”
And now what? Ell could barely hold on to her thoughts let alone her purpose. She had to drive Aesa’s people away instead of killing them, but Aesa wouldn’t be forced out with the rest. No, this aos sí would kill them both, and Aesa didn’t even know that. “Invaders have come. The barrier around the island must be strengthened to keep them out.”
The aos sí waved toward the water. “You must give of yourself, fini, and it shall be done. Kneel over the pool, slit your wrist, and as your blood drains, think on how the barrier should be strengthened.”
Ell paused. Slit her wrists and lose her blood? That was the sacrifice? But if she did it, maybe Aesa could be spared, find some way back, and flee. But how to tell her that?
The aos sí tilted her head. The helmet resting atop her white hair had little wings sparkling at the sides. “There’s something different about you. You’re hesitating.” She took a step closer, leaning down. “Something about your eyes.” Her hand drifted toward her sword. “Come, fini, let me have a closer look at you.”
An arrow launched out from behind the mushroom, arcing for the aos sí’s face. She leaned left, and it went sailing past. Ell dove out of the way of the aos sí’s feet as she drew her sword and swung, whacking the head off the mushroom. Aesa rolled and came up running, dodging for one of the pointed rocks that stuck up from the cavern floor.
The aos sí chased her, and Ell paused with Chezzo, wondering what to do. Shed her blood and continue the plan? But then Aesa might be slaughtered, and the aos s
í might kill Ell before the barrier could be strengthened. Better to help Aesa first, though she dreaded the thought of more violence. Ell looked across the aos sí statues, the mushrooms, the rocks, searching for something she could use. Aesa had managed to stay ahead of the aos sí’s strikes so far, but sooner or later, she would be caught. Perhaps she could strike if the aos sí was slowed.
“Here, look over here!” Ell called, waving her arms. The aos sí glanced at her, but Aesa looked, too, probably seeing at the last moment what Ell was attempting. They fell into their chase again.
Ell borrowed a shapti curse. Aesa ran in rough circles, firing if she could pause long enough, but her arrows glanced off the metal, or the aos sí dodged out of the way. “Chezzo, sit!” Ell said. “Stay.”
She could feel him watching as she raced toward one of the statues and used it to clamber atop a mushroom. They grew close together, spiraling out from the pond, and she slid from one to another, the spongy material threatening to tip her over the side.
When the aos sí came close enough, Ell leapt on her back, screaming. She caught the strap that held the metal to the aos sí’s body and clung on. Her feet grazed the metal’s edge, and she pushed up, trying to get to the aos sí’s head. When a loose hunk of hair fluttered close to her, she caught it and yanked.
The aos sí spun in a circle, reaching for her neck. Ell sank down, trying to stay out of reach. An arrow thumped into the back of the aos sí’s neck, and she grunted. When she reached for Ell again, her groping had a distracted air, as if she was trying to pay more attention to Aesa.
Ell reached for the arrow and pulled it out in a little spurt of blood. The aos sí gasped, and Ell stabbed her with the arrow, weeping as pink blood dribbled forth. She didn’t want to hurt the aos sí, didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she couldn’t let Aesa be killed.
The aos sí roared and threw herself backward. The legs of one of the statues loomed, and Ell let go, catching one of the straps and swinging between the aos sí’s legs as she dropped.
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