by E. A. Copen
Something inside it jerked, and I flinched. “Is he…?”
Beth forced herself to smile. “She’s just fine.”
She. Beth had said she. I barely had time to process it before she was depositing the tiniest squirming wad of human in my arms. And I mean tiny. I’d seen lots of babies, and I remembered my little sister being born, but I didn’t see her for almost a week thanks to jaundice. She’d been bigger, the size of a small dog. My daughter was the size of a Gatorade bottle and weighed next to nothing.
The minute I had her, a new fear consumed me. Something that small, that fragile, I was terrified I’d break her if I gripped her too tight. I almost handed her right back to Beth, but I was too afraid that, if I moved, I’d wake up and it would all turn out to be a dream.
She had messy dark hair, wrinkled pink skin, a proportional, slightly upturned nose, and big, full lips. Any one of those features on its own would have seemed odd, but put together it made her beautiful. Although I was probably biased.
She was perfect, a completely new life full of every possibility, with a full future stretched out in front of her. I didn’t deserve her.
Guess it’s a good thing we humans don’t all get what we deserve. We get kids instead, and kids give us the chance to make something of ourselves. A fresh start.
Like with every first meeting, I figured I should introduce myself. I took a deep breath, steeled my shaky nerves and said, “Hey there. I’m your daddy.” The word caught in my throat. I had to swallow about ten golf balls worth of lumps to continue. “I’m going to take care of you. I promise.” I kissed her forehead. She smelled like sunshine after a rainstorm.
I cried.
Wood creaked, and Athdar’s form ducked into the opening of Odette’s room. He started to say something but stopped when he looked at Odette. His face hardened to stone, and his massive jaw shuddered once before he turned and stomped away without a word.
Declan appeared where Athdar had been standing a moment ago. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but Shadow’s forces are closing. If the sun sets, they’ll have the advantage. I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help.”
I looked down at my daughter.
She opened one eye and blew a spit bubble at me.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said and slid around the bed to stand next to Beth.
I didn’t want to hand her over, not for an instant. With her birth, I finally understood why so many dads were always recording stupid things on their phones and video cameras. I didn’t want to miss a minute because something important might happen without me. But I couldn’t hold her and stop an army of Shadow fae, and if I didn’t, they’d swarm the palace and kill her.
“Please take good care of her until I come back.”
Beth took her and adjusted the blanket around her. “Of course. Just make sure you come back.”
I nodded and turned to Declan. “Let’s go check on William.”
“Wait,” Beth called as I took a step to follow Declan down the hall.
My heart skipped two beats, and I turned back. Was something wrong? Had I missed something? I knew I should’ve counted her fingers and toes.
“I just…” She looked down at the baby in her arms. “What should I call her?”
“Her name’s Remy Beau Kerrigan.”
Beth made a face. “After the X-Man?”
I winked and mimicked my best Cajun accent. “You know it, chère.”
“You’re a hopeless nerd, you know that?” She said it with a smile.
I stuck my tongue out at her. “Geek.”
Her face sobered. “Don’t lose.”
My eyes traveled to Remy and then to Odette. I imagined skinning Kellas alive. That cat thought he’d won. I was going to show him just how wrong he was.
Chapter Twenty-Three
William lay in his bed, gnashing his teeth and staring at the ceiling. On a silver tray next to him lay an assortment of ointments and gauze dressings. “Do you know when the last time I saw battle was?” he said as Declan and I entered. “In single combat, I’m undefeated. I have beaten forty challengers in my tenure as a knight. But I haven’t seen true battle since your race was still crawling from the mud.” His bed creaked as he fought to sit up.
William’s bandages were bright red in a line over the wound in his gut. His body still hadn’t stitched itself together properly, and he was in no shape to stand and fight now.
I pulled the chair in the corner out, turned it, and sat resting my arms across the back. “Looks like you’re going to miss this one, too. You go out there like that, and you’ll fall apart.”
He just glared at me, green eyes bright with envy.
If it were up to me, I’d be sending him out to fight in my place, and not just because I’d rather be holding my newborn daughter. William was an experienced knight, a proven battle commander with thousands of years of experience. The Summer troops trusted him and his leadership. Shadow feared him. They never would’ve dared launch their attack if he were whole.
“Princess Odette is dead.” My throat muscles constricted until I worked at flexing them a few times. “Titania has locked herself in a tower and is refusing to see anyone. There are knights and fae everywhere with armor and weapons, but they’re scared and don’t seem to know what to do or where to go. The castle is in chaos.”
“Of course it is,” William scoffed. “Chaos and fear are the weapons of Shadow. They struck at Titania’s heart. She’s mad with grief. So long as they keep her from entering the fight, Shadow will win.”
The chair creaked as I leaned forward. “How do I get her to fight?”
He grimaced and tried to sit without bending. I’d have offered him help, but I had the distinct feeling the reason he wanted to sit had nothing to do with comfort. Lying prone in front of other people signaled weakness, a message the blood only intensified. William wasn’t a man used to appearing weak, which was why he had opened the conversation with his resume and an insult aimed at humans.
He couldn’t hide the pain though and put a hand over his stomach as if to shield it. “You can’t. Titania is a force of nature. You can no more tell her what to do than you can command the wind. Eventually, her grief will shift from madness to fury, and then there will be hell to pay, but there’s no telling how long that will take. Shadow will have subdued her by then.”
“Subdued? How?”
“They’ll put her in iron,” Declan said. “Unlike how your wars are fought, here there’s no way to kill fae. Armies are defeated by maiming, disfigurement. When there aren’t enough Summer fae left standing to hold the walls, Shadow will swarm over them like ants. They will have an iron collar with them. Once they put it around Titania’s neck…” He shook his head and looked at the floor.
“Who are you, lad?” William asked, squinting. “I don’t recognize you.”
“Declan, sir. Of house Marigold.”
William nodded as if it made sense. “In any case, the boy’s right. It’s a slow and shameful death. In all my years of service, I have only seen two monarchs killed. Nyx, destroyed by your hand, and once during the Uprising.”
“The Uprising?” I looked to Declan for an explanation.
“A group of fae formed from many courts, sir. They decided to rebel against the High Court seeking to create their own. Their leader was collared about the neck, wrists, and ankles until the iron burned through his skin. They encased him in an iron coffin that was specially made and burned him to nothing. His name was erased from the history books and those who knew it were forbidden to speak it under penalty of death.”
“That’s extreme,” I muttered.
“We are fae,” William said. “We do not do anything halfway, and we must keep our word. When the King of Light told him he would be utterly destroyed, he meant it.”
Kellas was a smug bastard and a cat. Cats liked to play with their prey before they killed it and make it suffer. I wouldn’t put it past him to do something similar to Titania.
“Give me the worst-case scenario. What happens if Shadow wins and Summer is destroyed?”
William rubbed his temples. “The balance of power in Faerie is permanently disrupted. Because of alliances, the Court of Light will have to retaliate, and that will pull the High Court into things.”
Faerie World War I. Great. That was something I needed to prevent.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Declan chimed in with more bad news. “If Summer is obliterated in Faerie, it will disappear on Earth as well. Summer holds Winter in check, sir. Unchecked, Winter would slowly take over. The effect wouldn’t be immediate, but it would be noticeable.”
An end to summer on Earth meant more than just an end to beach days and vacations. Without summer and warmer weather, crops would fail. Famine and disease would prevail. Resources would become scarce in all industries, and the economy would collapse. Hunger and fear would drive global wars on an unprecedented scale. We’d destroy ourselves before the deep freeze ever had a chance to set in.
My fingers closed around my staff, tightening until my hand hurt. “Tell me how to beat them.”
William’s tone was grave. “You cannot. You’re just a man. You’re as weak and fragile as I am without the mantles of power you wear. It is by the power of the Summer Knight’s mantle alone that you have a chance.” He shifted in the bed with a grimace of pain. “Kellas has claws, magic, and an army at his back. Even with all those things, he can’t best the power of the mantle, and he knows it. That’s why he’s striking now. He thinks you’re weak because you don’t know how to use it.”
I swallowed. “But he’s right. I don’t know how to use it. Not like you would.”
He smirked, chuckled, and then winced. “That’s the secret to all mantles of power, Knight. You never truly wield it. It will always be most effective when you let it wield you. You are the weapon. It is the power. Open yourself to it, let it take you and Kellas will not have a chance.”
Let it take me. I stared at the staff in my hands. It looked like an ordinary bit of twisted wood, but I had seen it smoke and glow red and green. At times, it seemed almost sentient. If I did what William suggested though I could lose control. I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop.
“Of course,” he continued, “I’ve been the Summer Knight for centuries, and even I don’t have a full understanding. If you open yourself up, it could kill you. You are only human, after all. Who knows what it will do?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I stood.
“One more thing, Lazarus,” William said, sounding tired. “Being the Summer Knight is more than just the mantle. In Titania’s absence, the troops out there will look to you for guidance. Command them. Don’t show them any fear.”
“I don’t know how to run a battlefield, William. That’s the sort of thing that takes decades to learn.”
“Surely you must know something? You’ve fought many battles or else you wouldn’t be the Pale Horseman.”
I’d been in a few fights, but I wouldn’t have called any of them a battle. The biggest fight had been less than ten people, and I hadn’t been any kind of commander during that particular prison fight. Mostly, I stood by and watched. I was at my best when I could take on the bad guys one on one, using my speed and magic to my advantage. I just shouted insults at the bad guys until I pissed them off enough that they made a fatal mistake. My battle experience mostly stemmed from either video games, comic books, or movies and I doubted that qualified me to lead an army.
Right now, I was the best chance Summer had, experienced battle commander or not.
I shrugged. “Guess all those Netflix marathons and nights spent at the theater alone are going to come in handy.”
William smacked his face with his palm. “We’re doomed.”
After speaking with William, I stopped by to check on Remy and Beth again. Several women in white were lifting Odette’s body from the bed to a stretcher. It didn’t seem right, letting Odette go. She’d lied to me, hurt me in ways I’d likely never heal from completely, but she didn’t deserve to die. I hated myself for not being there with her when it happened. I hated myself more because I had promised her I’d stay and then left anyway. No more broken promises, I swore. Not to anyone.
The women carried Odette out on the stretcher, their heads bowed, their movements a silent whisper of rustling cloth.
“Has Titania seen Remy yet?” I asked Beth.
She shook her head.
I needed to get Titania to flip from drowning in madness and grief to burning pissed and ready to destroy Kellas for betraying her. Remy might be the motivation she needed, but I didn’t want to put my daughter in harm’s way. If I took her out of the infirmary, I’d be exposing her to all kinds of dangers. Putting her in the arms of a madwoman with the power of Summer would be even more irresponsible. Remy couldn’t be a bargaining chip, but I had to convince Titania she was worth fighting for.
“Do you want to hold her again?” Beth offered.
Boy, did I. I wanted it more than anything else at the moment, but I couldn’t. With Shadow at the gates, every second counted.
I shook my head. “No, I just wanted to see her one more time. Beth, it isn’t safe for her here. I need you to take her somewhere for me, somewhere far from here. Can you do that?”
She nodded.
“Do you remember where Odette’s apartment was?”
Beth nodded again.
“Meet me there in twenty-four hours, Earth time. If I don’t show…”
I looked at Remy and couldn’t speak. The world tumbled out of focus and the hunger hit, savage, cruel, demanding hunger. I was suddenly a starving man who’d kill for a morsel of food. My vision crossed, and all willpower went out the window. Everyone around me was reduced to either prey or predator.
At my back, I could sense the wary eyes of a predator, but his reflexes were slow, and he hadn’t gone on alert. Ahead, there was ample prey. Six, maybe seven pounds of wriggling fresh meat, untainted by anything. Innocent. It would taste so sweet.
My staff clattered to the floor. I took a step forward, my mouth watering.
“Lazarus?” Beth clutched Remy to her chest and took a step back. Fear rose in her eyes. Prey fear.
My mouth opened and a tongue that felt too big for it lolled out. After all the energy I had expended, I needed to eat, and I hadn’t had a decent morsel in days. I wouldn’t need to eat all of it. No, just a little. Then I could find a nice, cool spot and bury the rest, come back when the flesh had softened. It would be nice and juicy and cool then.
A hand closed on the back of my tunic and yanked me in reverse while a foot kicked at my knees. My legs went from under me, and I fell on my back with a snarl only to find myself facing a smoking staff. Viridian runes glowed and smoked on it with a stripe of crimson fire ringing the end toward my face.
Declan stood on the other end of the staff, his scarred face no longer the handsome centerpiece of a romance novel. Now he looked fierce, angry. Dangerous. “Don’t make me hurt you, sir.”
I blinked, and sanity returned. “It’s me.” I raised my hands in surrender. “I’m back.”
He hesitated a moment before withdrawing the staff and offering me a hand. “I don’t think it would be wise for you to linger here.”
I took his hand, and he helped me to my feet. “No, probably not.”
Inside, my guts turned to knots of ice and fire. That was the first time I’d had the urge to attack anything living without any prompting. I hadn’t been in my right mind. The ghoul virus was gaining the upper hand, and I was running out of time.
Beyond Declan, Beth had turned, using her body to shield Remy from me. Acknowledging that felt like being stabbed by Anubis’ khopesh all over again. I had nearly attacked and eaten my own daughter. If Declan hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have stopped myself. This needed to end, but I wasn’t going to get anywhere as long as Titania was locked away.
I started to say something to Beth but decided ag
ainst it. There wasn’t anything I could say to make up for what I had just done. I’d just proven that Remy wouldn’t be safe with me. She’d have to go and stay with someone else, someone who could be good to her and someone close so I could watch her. The list of people I trusted grew shorter every day. Finding a safe place for Remy would have to come later though. First, I had to save Summer.
Without a word, I turned away from the medical cubicle and started down the hall, pausing only to pick up my staff.
Declan hurried to catch up with me. “Where are we going, sir?” he asked as we broke through the doors of the infirmary and into the chaos.
I scanned the parapets of the castle, trying to determine which tower might be the one Titania had holed up in. The castle ramparts were made of the same mossy stone material as the castle walls. Towers jutted up twenty, thirty feet high, each one with ladders or stone stairs on the ramparts where guards scurried. Titania wouldn’t have chosen any of those.
Moving from right to left, I spotted seven towers, each progressively higher and thicker. The bigger the tower, the fewer guards moved around it until there were no guards at all on the seventh tower. Storm clouds hung around the sloped roof, blue lightning flashing deep inside them. It stretched a good twenty feet above the other towers and was far more secluded, exactly the kind of place a brooding fae monarch would choose to go hide from reality.
I looked at Declan. “Hold onto your britches, kid. We’re going to try to turn that little rainstorm into a tempest of wrath and fury.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
On my way to see Titania, I took the long way around, climbing up the closest stairs to walk the ramparts around the castle and see what we were up against. More thunder rumbled above, the air oppressive, sticky, and charged. It reminded me of the air back home the day before a hurricane hit.
At the top, I found archers with barrels of black pitch beside them peering out over the horizon with wide eyes and trembling hands. An archer with trembling fingers missed more shots than he made. I didn’t have to be a tactical genius to know that.