by Jocelyn Fox
“Hello, Tess.”
I don’t know if the voice was actually a voice, if the words were spoken aloud or if they were simply in my head. In any case I turned toward the speaker, who stood a few paces away from me on the green hill.
“I’ve seen you before,” I said, “in my vision, when I first came to Darkhill.”
“Yes,” she replied, the sun lighting her bright golden hair like a saint’s halo. White daisies were woven into her gleaming braid, crowning her with their innocent petals.
“Your lips aren’t moving,” I said in fascination. I nodded in satisfaction. “This is definitely a dream.”
Titania laughed, her beautiful face lit by mirth. I marveled at the difference between her and Mab, how cold her counterpart in the Unseelie Court seemed compared to the Bright Queen.
“I have forgotten that mortals do not put much stock in dreams anymore,” she said teasingly, this time moving her lips as she spoke.
“Apparently there’s a lot that both mortals and Sidhe have forgotten over the years,” I replied.
Titania smoothed an invisible wrinkle from the front of her vibrant green gown. The golden belt around her hips bore the likenesses of delicate daisies as well, a hand-wrought counterpoint to the fresh flowers in her hair. “You are perceptive, Tess. And I must tell you that my good Glasidhe Glira arrived in my Court just the other day to tell me about you.”
“I thought Glira owed allegiance to the Unseelie Court,” I said.
“The Glasidhe, as they would readily tell you themselves, no doubt, owe allegiance to no one,” replied Titania. When I nodded, she continued. “The Glasidhe sense mortals far differently than we do. They can tell the most delicate details, when they put their mind to it.” The Bright Queen settled gracefully onto the grass, and motioned with one of her beautiful slender hands for me to join her. I sat down beside her, feeling distinctly large and clumsy next to her effortless elegance.
“Glira told me that you were very different from any mortal she has encountered in recent years,” said the Queen.
I wanted to ask Titania if she’d really been captured by Malravenar. I wanted to ask her if my visions were really visions, or if they were just dreams. I wanted to ask her if Molly would still be my friend, because somehow it seemed like she would know the answer to any question I could ask. But even as each question rose in my mind, it sank down again as small waves of contentment washed over me. I looked at Titania, trying to decide whether she was playing some sort of mind-game with me, if she was trying to access my mind just as Mab had done, but in a gentler and perhaps more dangerous way.
“Do not look so suspicious, my dear Tess,” said Titania gently. Her eyes, green as the grass on the hillside, looked earnestly into mine. “Is it so horrible to feel contentment and rest your worries for a small while?”
I blinked and took a breath. “I feel like it’s a trick.”
Titania shook her head, a slight sadness suddenly touching her face. “You have spent so little time with us, and yet you are so wary. This is what our world has come to, in these recent times.”
Somehow I felt guilty for the sadness passing over Titania’s beautiful face, so I leaned back on my elbows and let my mind ease into the light happiness still rippling about the Seelie Queen. She gazed at me and then a small smile graced her lovely mouth.
A white daisy sprang up from between the blades of grass in front of Titania, unfurling its white petals in the time it took me to raise my eyebrows. The Queen reached out and delicately plucked the flower, tucking it behind my ear with a gentle, mother-like touch.
“There now,” she said softly. I smiled in spite of myself. “In truth, you are a very beautiful mortal, Tess. It gladdens my heart to see some of the care lifted from you.”
I felt a hot blush rise to my cheeks: the ethereal Seelie Queen telling me that I was beautiful was slightly embarrassing, perhaps because I felt like a crudely cut wooden doll next to her porcelain perfection. “Thank you,” I said awkwardly, the words sticking to my tongue like wool.
Titania smiled a little again. “But of course, I have not come to you to speak about your beauty, Tess O’Connor, as true as the stories may be.”
What stories? I wondered briefly before Titania continued.
“Malravenar has begun his attacks,” said Titania gravely. “He has been testing our defenses for some time, and now it has begun.” She looked at me. “I am sorry to have to do this to you, Tess, but you must understand the urgency of our situation.”
And before I could say anything, she took my hand and stood. I stood with her and the peaceful green hillside wavered, dissolving under our feet. I felt my hand tighten involuntarily on Titania’s as the bucolic scene disappeared. Suddenly some invisible force thrust us out into a world of smoke and ash, smeared at the edges with the orange and red of flames. I tried to remind myself that I was dreaming, but the smoke stung my throat and my eyes watered. I coughed, using my free hand to pull my shirt up over my mouth and nose. As I watched, dark shapes moved through the hazy smoke. The charred ribs of what must have been a great hall stood out starkly against the gray sky, pieces of colored glass glittering in the ruins of the building. Then the sounds reached my ears, the last piece of the scene to accost my senses: inhuman sounds, grunts and growling and cackles of joyless mirth. I clenched my teeth against the sudden tide of fear rising in my throat as I recognized the carrion stench, the deep growls. I took an involuntary step backward as a huge shape loomed abruptly in front of us, moving through the drifting smoke like a specter. Only Titania’s firm grip on my hand kept me from falling as I stumbled.
I stared in horror. It was a garrelnost, but even larger than the one I’d fought on the dusty road in Texas. I wasn’t even as tall as this beast’s legs. I gagged and hitched in a breath as the terrible reek of death rolled off its gory, matted fur. “Can it see us?” I asked Titania hoarsely.
The Faerie Queen gazed up at the awful beast calmly, her white skin shining like marble through the grime of the smoke. “No, it cannot see us.”
As the garrelnost prowled forward, its every step shaking the ground beneath my feet, I saw that a rider sat atop its misshapen shoulders. The rider was about the size of a person, wearing all black. I couldn’t see its face, and then realized it was wearing a mask without even eye-slits, a mask of some dead black material that reflected no light, and seemed even to draw light into it, sucking away what little illumination remained in the desolate scene. In one hand the rider held a whip of leather-like material, with small spiked balls attached to the end of each strand; and in the other it held a long blade. A dark blue-black substance dripped from the edge of its sword, and with a sickening sinking of my stomach I realized that the rider’s sword was covered with Sidhe blood.
“What is this place?” I asked Titania in a whisper, transfixed by the sight of the huge garrelnost and its gruesome rider.
“This,” Titania said sadly, “was the Saemhradall—the Summer-Hall, the jewel of the Bright Coast.”
“Not like Darkhill is to the Unseelie Court?” I breathed.
“No,” replied Titania. She didn’t look at me as she spoke, her hard gaze taking in the destruction laid bare before us. “Brightvale is yet untouched. But…the Saemhradall was a beautiful place, a place where many of my people came to rest their cares and seek healing.”
Suddenly the horrible sounds of the Shadow-creatures doubled, the growls and snarls swelling in a terrible crescendo. Titania stiffened beside me as a humanoid figure, masked like the rider, emerged from the shadows, thrusting before it a young Sidhe woman whose hands were bound cruelly behind her back. My stomach twisted as I glimpsed her face. If she had been human, she would have been fifteen or sixteen. Ash smudged her face and her gown looked like it had been white once, but greenish gore soaked the fabric. Not Sidhe blood, I knew, so it must hav
e been the blood of the horrible creatures. Her hair was white-gold, almost the same color as that of Titania: she was a member of the Seelie Court, one of Titania’s subjects.
The sound of the scene wavered, coming in swaying spurts as if we were underwater. I saw the Sidhe girl bare her teeth in a defiant snarl, her beautiful youthful face shining like a flame through the murky shadows. She struggled a little as the masked Shadow-servant pushed her forward again, prodding her with the tip of his blade. As the garrelnost-rider slid down from its gruesome steed, I knew with a cold feeling that they were going to kill the Sidhe girl.
“Titania,” I said in a quiet voice, “are you going to let her die?”
“It is not within my power to save her,” Titania said, her voice shaking with rage and sorrow.
“Give me my sword,” I said, clenching my fists.
“I cannot, Tess.”
“So you brought me here to watch her die?” I demanded, feeling my lips pull back in a snarl of my own as I faced Titania.
“The Bright Court’s power has fallen under the Shadow,” Titania said.
The rider advanced on the Sidhe girl. The Shadow-servant behind her kicked the back of her legs cruelly, forcing her to her knees. I could see her lips moving—was she speaking a spell, or cursing the evil about to take her life? Her eyes blazed with defiance and hatred as she looked up at the rider holding the bloody blade.
“I can’t watch this,” I growled, feeling the tide of anger rising in me again. Titania might be the Queen of the Seelie Court, but who was she to drag me through hell in my own dreams? The rage burned hotter within me, fueled by the thoughts of Mab rifling through my most precious memories, binding me here to the Fae world until I satisfied her, taking away my best friend to save their world.
Titania remained silent beside me. I added her cold silence to the fire. I didn’t fight it, letting it course through my veins, turn my eyes into burning coals, a pulsing ember replacing my heart in my breast. I would not be helpless anymore.
And then I realized that the anger was something different entirely. I didn’t understand why, but I knew suddenly that I was more powerful than Titania in this half-dream, standing among the ashes of the Saemhradall. Something in the bones of the great hall called to me, brightening my rage, turning it into ropes of shining light that I felt within me. It was no longer anger for anger itself—it was the knowledge that I was no longer helpless and I did not even understand myself.
“Embrace it, Tess,” said Titania, a strange satisfaction and excitement coloring her voice. “Do not fight it.”
The rider stepped forward, and the Sidhe girl was struggling, tears streaming down her cheeks but her face still a mask of hard defiance, like a she-wolf caught in a trap that sees the hunter approaching. The Shadow-creatures’ strange language reached fever pitch as the blade flashed back.
In the blink of an eye, it all changed.
I stepped forward into the smoke and ashes, wrenching my hand from Titania’s unresisting grip, feeling solid and dream-like both at once. I felt the familiar hilt of my sword in my hand and I heard myself yell something in a language foreign to my own ears, the strange light in my veins moving my body, shaping the words with my lips. The rider turned, its masked face betraying nothing. The light in my veins sang in fierce satisfaction as my blade, blazing with a white-blue fire, buried itself in the dark form’s body. The rider growled and snarled, stumbling back, pulling its body off my blade. My arm moving of its own accord, I swung my sword over the Sidhe girl, her bright hair inches below my blade. The sword passed through the second Shadow-servant effortlessly. Unlike its companion, it started to shake as smoke poured out from behind its mask. A blood-curdling shriek emerged from the creature, cut off abruptly as the black cloak collapsed, the mask falling to the ground, balancing on its edge for a moment and then coming to rest on the empty folds of the Shadow-servant’s raiment.
I whirled, sword held ready in guard, expecting an attack from the garrelnost and its rider. Sure enough, the human-like creature gripped the fur of the garrelnost and slithered up into the rude saddle perched high atop its haunches. The hideous beast snarled at me, ropes of saliva dripping from its exposed fangs, stained black with Sidhe blood. The white fire roared within me and I heard a fierce answering snarl, felt my lips pulling back from my teeth. I crouched in front of the Sidhe girl, facing the rider defiantly, Titania nowhere to be seen even though it was she who had brought me into this nightmarish vision. My sword shone with slick black gore, and the detached part of myself noticed that my eyes were glowing with a green fire—not the Fae-spark, but something equally strange and foreign to me.
“One klavhacka bitch means nothing to me,” hissed the Shadow-rider in a strange tongue. The garrelnost growled, tearing at the ground with one massive front paw, and the rider lashed it with the barbed whip until it stood still.
I understood him—for the voice was vaguely masculine, even though it wasn’t much more than a hideous whisper. “Good,” I replied, my voice strong and steady. “Then you will not mind leaving her to me.”
“The klavhacka matters little now,” rasped the rider, satisfaction ringing through his hoarse tone.
And though I did not understand exactly what he meant by that, an intense relief threatened to overwhelm me as the rider turned the garrelnost, the hideous beast prowling away into the curling smoke. I hastily checked all the points of the compass, as Ramel had taught me. With the smoke, I couldn’t see much. I turned to the Sidhe girl. The vision started wavering again. I put out a hand and touched her shoulder, and the lines of her face solidified again. She looked up at me expectantly, her lips moving, but no sound coming out. I frowned, trying to understand her, and then realized that she was impatiently moving her bound hands, asking for me to cut the ropes.
Keeping one hand on her shoulder—I didn’t like the underwater effect—I carefully cut the swollen ropes that bound her hands behind her back. She rubbed the angry red welts around her wrists, and then she bent, rummaging through the ruins of the other Shadow-servant, her lip curled slightly in distaste. When she stood, she held a bright sword. A Sidhe sword, from a dead warrior no doubt, that the Shadow-servant had secreted among its robes.
Just as suddenly as the white fire had filled my veins, it left. I gasped at the abrupt and painful feeling of emptiness: I felt as though the warmth and blood had left my body along with the light, leaving me cold and drained. The girl tried to talk to me, but the scene wavered. The smell of smoke and death faded. She took a step forward, toward me, but then something moved on the periphery of the broken walls. She raised her sword, bounding away over the blackened ashes on light feet, leaving me alone among the ruins of the Saemhradall.
“Titania!” I called out, my voice echoing through the dim, wavering light.
The Seelie Queen’s voice whispered in my ear: “You are no ordinary mortal, Tess. You possess power beyond even my imaginings. Mab is spread too thin protecting her realm, and thus she gave you no second thought.”
I looked around me, but Titania was nowhere to be seen. Still her disembodied voice spoke.
“I, however, have much time to think. I have failed my people, and my crown-sister, and soon our fair world will fall under darkness.”
Whirling again, my sword flashing in the half-light, I shouted at the incorporeal Sidhe Queen. “You’re wrong! It’s Molly who has the power!”
“The fendhionne pales in comparison to you,” said Titania, the sound of her voice moving from one ear to the other—if she were standing beside me she would have been uncomfortably close, purring into my hair as she moved. “You smell of ancient blood and moonlight, sacred stones and holy women.”
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.
“Say what you please,” Titania said, her voice growing fainter. “They have found me out, and I am sure that he will s
hackle me in dreams as well…farewell, Tess O’Connor.”
Had I heard a slight note of fear in the Seelie Queen’s voice as she had spoken of her captors? I was sure now that the Enemy had captured Titania—the earth beneath my feet shuddered, and a deep rumbling grew louder. There was a sudden whirl of dark shapes and shadows as creatures fled from the ruins, abandoning their spoils as the earth itself protested, splitting open with a thunderous crack. The charred beams of the great vault-like ceiling quivered high over my head, and pieces of ash fell like snow. I ran, picking my way over the carnage without letting myself look properly at the wreckage beneath my feet, still holding my sword in one hand. I felt there and not there—I wasn’t sure if one of the huge falling beams would crush me, or pass right through me like a ghost, and I didn’t want to find out.
I ran toward a fringe of woods at the edge of the clearing that had held the Saemhradall, and when I reached the forest I stopped, turning back. The ruins of the Seelie hall collapsed in a spray of smoke and ash, swallowed by the cavernous fault that was still widening, the earth jolting beneath my feet. I watched breathlessly, sword-tip resting in the loam of the forest, the bright green leaves of the tree overhead trembling. I leaned back against the tree.