by Ron C. Nieto
The dog yelped, going from bloodthirsty hellhound to puppy, and two figures coalesced upon it just as the third disappeared.
Marast staggered and went down to one knee.
Without thinking, Lily grabbed his shoulders to help him up, but with a snarl, the Hunter shook her off. His lips were peeled back, like a wolf’s on the attack, and his attention was on the tree line. The snow was settling after the fierce fight, and black ribbons were floating down among the flurry of flakes.
The hound was just gone.
The fog figures turned to them now, their gazes heavy with intent even though their faces had no eyes, and Marast pulled a knife from his boot and flung it to the snow.
“Defend yourself,” he growled before charging them.
“Wait!”
But of course he didn’t. He locked blades with the surviving figures, and the moment he did, another burst of snow went off between Lily and him, blocking him from view and isolating her. She scrambled to grab the knife Marast had given her, holding it awkwardly before her.
Lily didn’t stop to think. If she did, she would go to a corner of her mind to cry and scream until it was all over. Instead, she jumped forward before the fog figure was fully formed and slashed at where its throat should be.
A thin ribbon of silver appeared and trailed behind her blade, but the figure still reached out and attempted to grasp her. Lily stopped her momentum, arms windmilling, and kicked its knee. Or its leg. Or its groin, it was difficult to tell.
Her foot found a syrupy resistance, like trying to swim through quicksand, and it caused her to finally overbalance and fall. As she did, she tucked into a roll and managed to evade the grapple, but her blade nicked her own arm in the process. When she could stand again, two fog figures towered over her, one trailing silver and moving less swiftly, but both of them equally intent and capable of killing her.
It’s because I don’t have iron. This knife looks like polished steel, but it isn’t. It’s something faeries can use, something non-lethal.
She tried to charge and slice again, but this time the fog figure was expecting her and dodged to the side, causing the blade to leave another silver trail running down its arm. The figure shook itself and came at her again.
Correction: Marast did kill them, so I’m guessing the weapons are about as lethal as any normal weapon for any normal person. I just have to score a killing blow.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another column of snow shooting to the air, over the lake, but she forced the knowledge out of her head. She focused on the fog figure in front of her, on its movements, its speed. She followed the contour of its body, guessed where its heart must be, and gathering herself, she jumped and plunged the knife—
Into snow.
The moment she lunged, the second fog figure, the unharmed one, the one she had forgotten all about, shoved her from behind and rode her down, attempting to knock the knife out of her hand. She held on, barely, and it bore a surprisingly heavy weight on her back, pinning her to the snow and making sure she couldn’t stab anything but flurries or slivers of ice.
Then, snow sludge blocked her nostrils and began to inch its way inward.
They’re going to drown me, just like Troy does.
She thrashed and screamed, but only gurgles came out and her head felt heavy, woozy. Suddenly, sleeping sounded like a grand idea.
But then the weight left her, and she rolled to her back, and she could breathe again. Shaking off the torpor, she swung her knife and climbed to her feet. She saw her blade sweeping in slow motion toward the white column of a familiar throat, one that was not made of fog or snow.
“Troy!” she screamed, horrified.
He had escaped the loch, he had saved her from the fog figure drowning her, and now she was going to kill him because she couldn’t pull back.
But then Troy stepped into the arch of the weapon, grabbed her wrist, and twisted, pulling her off balance.
He broke her fall, gathering her back to his chest with one arm around her waist while the fingers of his other hand freed her wrist and closed over hers on the knife’s handle. It happened so fast Lily didn’t even see him move.
“Give me your weapon, Lily Boyd.”
And she did. She did, even before he got out her True Name, even before he could make it into a command. She let go of the knife, his words barely rattling her soul since, for once, they flowed toward the same goal, and he spun out, Marast’s blade a blur in his hand as he cut the fog figures open from neck to groin before sinking the weapon to the hilt in their glowing, silvery chests.
“Are you okay?” she asked because somehow it was important, no matter what she kept telling herself about him.
Troy gave her a wry look, but it was Marast who answered, calling back over his shoulder after having finished his own battle.
“Of course. He is, as you mortals put it, peachy. Can you not see it?”
Lily swallowed. Yes, she could see his state. Now that they weren’t in dark, murky water, now that she wasn’t attacking him by mistake, now that he wasn’t moving lightning fast, she could see him. His shirt hung in tatters from his shoulders, the black tinted dark red, and even his leather pants were torn along the thigh, the wound seeping blood down his leg to pool on the white snow at his feet. The skin was tight around his eyes, hinting at purplish eye bags born from exhaustion that were out of place in a faerie’s face, and his eyes still showed the lingering trace of primal fear she had only seen once before—when she had almost hit him by accident with iron.
Beyond that, the one thing that scared her the most was that he was dry. Not a drop of water sliding down his temple, not a hint of wetness in the remains of his clothing. He was absolutely dry, despite having been dunked into the loch.
Lily swallowed, unable to find the right words.
“Did you at least destroy her?” asked Marast.
“No,” said Troy.
“Peachy.” Marast sighed and came to stand beside them, flanking Lily’s other side. When he did, Lily caught red droplets splattered over the mesh of mail covering his side.
“Are you—?” Lily began, but she bit her tongue when he arched his eyebrow at her, daring her to finish the question. Changing gears, she said, “Are you sure you know the meaning of ‘peachy?’”
Marast chuckled, but the tension didn’t leave his shoulders and he didn’t sheathe his weapon, a long, slightly curved sword that might be a cross between a scimitar and a saber.
“She has a rare courage, Kelpie, I shall give you that,” he said, speaking right over her head.
Troy nodded, accepting the compliment on her behalf, and then pointed toward the loch. “Courage shall not serve us well in this situation.”
“Courage is always commendable,” replied Marast. Then, he followed Troy’s nod with his eyes and sighed again. “Though perhaps it is not always enough.”
There, standing over the frozen surface of the loch, stood the murderous water faerie, surrounded by an army of fog figures.
C H A P T E R XXVI
“What is that creature?”
“The correct question is: what is it doing free?” said Marast.
“Ayalga,” Troy said, taking a deep breath. “She was one of ours once, until Her Majesty chose to exile her.”
“She did not take kindly to such decision.” Marast was frowning, focusing, but still he chimed in.
“No, she did not,” Troy admitted, running his fingers through his hair. For once, it did not stay slicked back, dripping down his neck—he only succeeded in mussing it up, and the black locks slipped over his forehead again. “So the Queen, in Her infinite wisdom, decided to imprison her for all time.”
“Do you think whoever tried to glamour me let her loose?” Lily asked.
“Whoever succeeded glamouring you,” Marast corrected, “resides in the Winter Court.”
“So?”
Marast grunted and shifted his weight. Finally he blinked, shaking his head, and tur
ned to glare at Lily. “So? You do not imagine the Queen would keep such riffraff in her home, do you?” A dog howled just then, the call answered by another and then another. Three hounds, their fur black as pitch and their eyes red like burning rubies, slunk out of the tree line and gathered around Marast, ears flat against their skulls and razor teeth bared in snarls.
They are his glamour, Lily realized. Just like Troy can drown people and the Librarian rules over the library, just like Hevana could make me pretty for one night . . . Marast can call on his hounds to harry his prey.
Lily stared at the small pack and swallowed. If that was true, the Hunter was tiring. It had taken him way too much effort and focus to summon the creatures.
“Where was this Ayalga creature kept then?” she asked, tucking her realization away.
“In a cave,” Troy replied, soft enough to be barely audible. “Guarded by an immortal jailer, a faerie so mighty and so opposite her, she would never have a chance to escape.”
“In a . . .” Lily whipped around to stare at Troy. “In a cave. Guarded by . . . a cuelebre?”
“Yes.”
I let this creature out? I killed the person under the snow, and who knows how many more people, and maybe even us? All because I agreed to a stupid bargain to recover a stupid rock that was supposed to save people from pixie pox?
Lily opened her mouth. Closed it again. Fought to breathe. Began to shake. “I—I—” Suddenly, another question became important. “Why did the Unseelie Queen exile and imprison her?”
This time, it was Marast who answered. “Because she became a monster.”
The irony. Oh, the irony of that answer . . . and the terrifying knowledge that it was the truth. In front of them stood a creature the Queen of the Unseelie faeries, monsters and predators all of them, had deemed too monstrous to belong with them, and it was free because of her.
“Focus, Lily.” Troy gripped her shoulder with his free hand, the other holding Marast’s knife. He didn’t make it a command, but his eyes bore into hers with enough force to guarantee he would use her True Name if he had to. “You must think of nothing beyond survival now.”
“I’m not a good fighter,” she said, thinking of the way she hadn’t been able to kill even one fog figure by surprise.
“We—” Marast winced and blinked twice, as if he had been hit by an invisible fist. “Well, all right. I am a good fighter. Kelpie is . . . resourceful enough, I suppose. You only need to avoid death; we shall deliver it.”
Troy gave Marast an annoyed look, and Lily realized the wince had been caused by an attempt at lying. “We are good fighters,” he had meant to say.
Lily snickered. She couldn’t help it, despite the situation, and it earned her an appraising look from the Hunter.
Troy squeezed her shoulder and bent low, his lips hesitating a fraction of an inch from her temple before brushing a tentative kiss over her skin, as light as the fluttering wings of a butterfly. “Survive, Lily Boyd,” he whispered, the command weaving around her soul and wrapping delicate tendrils around her mind, reinforcing her will rather than overtaking it.
Lily gasped, and her hand reached out to grasp his shoulder on its own accord, and she wanted to kiss him back, but the moment she touched him, she was yanked back to reality.
His shirt was wet and sticky with blood, not water; his skin was warm, as if he were running a fever; and his eyes weren’t heated, nor did they display any of the emotions she thought she had seen in them back in the Winter Court—they were worried and scared.
She patted his upper arm because she was sure she’d hurt him if she squeezed. “You too,” she said.
“Touching as this scene is,” Marast cut in, “I would be very pleased to know why Ayalga is waiting instead of attacking.”
“She is feasting,” Troy replied. “And she has no reason to make haste.” He didn’t add that the more she waits the weaker we become, but Lily heard it loud and clear anyway.
“Feasting?” Is she an ice faerie? She controlled it well enough. “On the ice?”
Troy shook his head. “Fear. Despair. A sense of futility.” He cut his eyes to Lily. “The mixture in the air at the moment is quite potent.”
“Playing with her quarry.” Marast scoffed. “Disgusting habit.”
“For you, perhaps.” Troy shrugged. “Some of us find the idea of hunting for a pleasure that is not our own to be equally revolting.”
The dig at Marast’s position as Royal Hunter earned Troy a dark glare, but the sidhe didn’t otherwise rise to the bait. Instead, he nodded toward Ayalga. “You must agree that it is foolish to allow her the advantage.”
“She already has it,” Troy deadpanned. “But do go ahead.”
With a grim smile, Marast exchanged sword for bow, and his hounds bounded forward as he nocked arrow after arrow, firing at the fog figures. Four of them exploded in silver smithereens before the hounds even reached the bulk of the group, and at least three more fell to the onslaught of claws and snapping jaws before Ayalga screamed, lifting her arms and gesturing forward.
If the sound had been shrill and terrible underwater, now it was enough to make Lily stagger, her balance shot and her ears ringing long after the echoes of Ayalga’s war cry faded into the snow. It was the sound of nightmares, like bones crunching and nails scraping on glass while silver bells tolled in the distance. It was so wrong that Lily felt her ears should be bleeding after having listened to it, that she should be scrubbing the inside of her brain to clean the stain of such noise. It made Troy recoil, and even Marast missed his cadence of nocking, aiming, firing, killing. One of his arrows flew wide, and the mass of fog figures charged forward, as if that had been the signal to attack.
How many are there? Lily tried to count, but there were too many, moving too fast, their contours surreal against the white of the snow and the low-hanging clouds.
Too many.
The fog figures presented a solid front, one of them merging into another until they seemed to be a bank of mist rolling in from the loch. Marast emptied his quiver into the line, leaving flashes of silver in the wake of his arrows, but the holes he created were plugged by more figures. His hounds dove in, biting and tearing like devils, but they retreated just as fast. It seemed they—or Marast—had learned from the way the creatures had torn apart their brother, and now they did as much damage as possible before darting off, avoiding the deadly grasp of the fog. A lot of the figures leaked silver, and their gliding slowed down somewhat, but they didn’t die and they didn’t stop.
Marast swung his bow over his shoulder again and drew his blade. “I suppose you are in no condition to spirit the Herald away?” he asked Troy, who crouched in front of Lily and to her right, one hand buried in the snow.
“I believe you said this was the safest course of action,” Troy replied. “I did advise against seeking her out.”
“Should I take the non-sequitur to mean you are useless at the moment?”
“I cannot shift,” Troy admitted.
“Useless.” Marast nodded and pivoted, slicing his blade through the fog and leaving a tiny silver supernova behind. “Can you at least run, Herald?”
“Yes,” Lily said, at the same time as Troy replied, “Not fast enough.”
The first fog figures slipped past Marast and Troy stood, dispatching them both with a combination of throat-slicing followed by a rapid stab-twist-pull sequence to where the creatures might have their hearts. Or perhaps their guts. He was still dry and battered, but Lily thought he moved a bit easier. He bled less, but she wasn’t sure if that was because he was healing, or because he was running out of blood.
The idea nauseated her and she stepped back.
“I suggest trying anyway,” Marast grunted.
“Pointless,” Troy said, but began to back away toward her.
Lily almost began to run, but then the fog figures managed to trap one of the black hounds and literally tore it to pieces. She froze, as much an icicle as the world around her, a
nd couldn’t take her eyes away from the fog covering the hound and pulling it apart, tearing ribbons from the outside and bloating it from the inside, just as they had been about to drown her, until it exploded like an overinflated balloon in so many pieces of black confetti. It was gone in a moment, without so much as a yelp.
Ahead, between them and the fog, surrounded by figures on every side, Marast staggered and lost his footing without so much as a grunt.
Lily screamed. “Help him!”
Troy glanced at her, warily, but didn’t move from his defensive position. Then, amid the fog, Marast climbed to his feet again, and if he was a bit slower, a bit more unsteady, at least he was alive and Lily felt relief she wouldn’t have imagined feeling for an Unseelie faerie.
A few more fog figures took their chance to slip past the Hunter, but Troy stepped into their path, weaving the knife with deadly results, and a moment later Marast was fighting again, and it looked like the fog figures weren’t infinite.
Then, one of the two remaining hounds did yelp.
The sound was so full of fear and pain, so high-pitched, it was almost human. The fog figures stepped aside, arranging themselves in a wide circle, and the mist they brought with them cleared, allowing for a direct view of Ayalga.
The thing was she looked quite pretty. Out of the water, her hair no longer seemed like seaweed, and it fell down her back and shoulders in damp locks. The simple shift she wore was wet and clung to proportionate, perfectly human curves, and her cheekbones were high and delicate. Her eyes were dark, though. Unlike the playful gleam of Troy’s or the thirst for a challenge Marast’s sometimes displayed, there was nothing in hers. Absolutely nothing as her delicate jaw unhinged to tear and swallow another morsel of the hound thrashing desperately in her grip.
There was a lot of strength in those hands, as Lily knew. The grip didn’t budge, her thin arm didn’t even shake as she lifted the hound, closed her jaw on a chunk of flesh, and tore it free like a shark.