Moribund

by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge

  All…me? It can’t be. She’s the badass dark Fae. I’m just Syl. Syl Skye, high school photographer, mathlete, geek.

  “Any time now, princess.”

  “Hold your horses, Miss Impatient!” Fine. I’ll try, but I don’t really believe it.

  I thrust my hand out. It looks like this in every TV show—the heroine making some silly hand gesture no matter how complex the spell or power.

  Now I know why those shows drive me nuts.

  The power fizzles inside me, refuses to come out.

  It’s because silly hand gestures are lame.

  One of the last hell-hounds darts in, all snapping teeth and burning eyes. It latches on to her violin, teeth scraping the glassy surface, trying to tear the instrument from her grip.

  I want to help her. If I’m this sleeper-princess, that should mean power, but how do I use it? I think back to that night on the tracks, being chased, hunted, sun-hot fire bursting up from within me, white and blaring. If only I can tap into that again…

  The hell-hound growls, yanking hard on Euphoria’s violin. She lets go, dragging the bow across the strings. The hound comes away with the violin in its teeth and a burst of lightning in its face. It falls, a smoking heap.

  Euphoria kicks her violin back up into her hands.

  Gah, she is so cool!

  A shadow falls on her from behind.

  “Euphoria!” I scream, throwing my hand up to ward off the last hell-hound leaping for her neck. The burning in my body swells, my hand cramps and twists like I’m throwing a curve ball, and with a sudden burst, the power pushes painfully past the blockage inside, rushing up and out of me.

  That’s it!

  A jolt of white flame pulses from my hand. It strikes the hell-hound. For a moment, its fur ripples as though caught in a high wind, and then it burns away like birch bark and paper, leaving only cinders behind. No fur, no bones, no circuits.

  Euphoria and I are alone once more.

  Whoa… I stare at the blackened ground for a half sec, and then, “Awww, yes! In your face!” I fist-pump, giving Euphoria the cheekiest grin in the history of ever. “How’s that for sleeper-princess awesomeness?”

  Euphoria limps away from the tracks. “Finally.” She quirks an eyebrow at me. “Took you long enough.”

  The look she gives me sends warmth and butterflies warring inside me. “You know me,” I joke. “Maximum drama.” Far off, I hear the sirens. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

  “Rouen!”

  His voice rings out over the tracks, making them vibrate. Agravaine.

  Ugh, guy has the worst timing.

  We both turn to see Mr Stompy-Pants stomping up the slope. His face is twisted with anger and his fist clenches. “How many times do I have to order you, Huntress?” He points at me, right at my face.

  Rude much?

  “Bring her to me. Now.”

  Euphoria fights his Command. Her jaw clenches, her muscles lock. She refuses, holds one hand over her nose even as it gushes like a faucet. “Screw you, Agravaine.” She’s playing all cool, but I see the dark circles beneath her blue eyes.

  “Seriously.” I step to her defense. “No means no, dude.”

  His shark-black eyes glitter. “Does it now?” He cracks his knuckles, and this time, when his voice rings out, it’s oddly hollow, striking like a bell, clear and loud. “Rouen Rivoche, bring me the last sleeper-princess.”

  There is something different about this Command.

  Euphoria turns to me, her face sick like she’s going to hurl. “Run, Syl. I can’t… My true-name…”

  True-names. Glamma always said that it was the ultimate power over a Faekind.

  And he just used it against Euphoria…to get her to capture me.

  She steps toward me, and I stumble back into the safety of the tracks. If I run, she’ll just chase me down. I’m fast, but I’m not dark-Fae-on-steroids fast like she is.

  Maybe I can wait her out. Even now, I hear the police sirens wailing. The fire alarm. I pat myself on the back for that one.

  But my luck and cleverness is about to run out.

  While I’m pretty sure the cops saw the Lady Gaga-level light show we’ve all been putting on, they’re still miles away.

  Euphoria will get to me first.

  “Syl.” She sets down her bow and violin, and tugs at the glove on her right hand. Fear slices through me. My Fae-sight sees the air warp and weft around her hand—the same inky indigo ick that’s infected the rest of the students.

  Crap.

  “Syl, run.”

  I should. I should be running my butt off, but I’m not. Apparently, being a sleeper-princess comes with a giant pulsating martyr complex. I decide to own it. “And leave you to him? No way.”

  “You don’t understand.” She leaps for me, and I barely dodge. “I can’t stop. I can’t!”

  “Then I’ll just have to stop you.” My words are brave, but my heart thrashes like a trapped bird in my chest. Can I do it without killing her? Without hurting her?

  She lunges for me.

  I lift my hand, flex my fingers. Just a little. The power in me swells like a solar flare, and a pulse of white flame jolts from my fingertips.

  It strikes her in the chest, knocking her a dozen feet into the air. She crashes down on the train tracks with a bone-crunching shudder.

  She tries to rise, violet lightning licking over her hand. “Syl.” Her eyes roll back into her head, and she collapses, but there’s that snarky-sexy grin on her face.

  I did it! Holy cats! I look around, but of course. It’s Murphy’s law. That one time you do something über-cool, there’s no one around to see it.

  “So…you are Awakened, little princess.” Agravaine takes a step toward me, eying the white flames around my hand.

  I shake them off, and they snuff out in a super-cool plume of white smoke. “You bet your sorry patootie, pal.” Not that I know what-all being “Awakened” means…

  He chuckles, runs a hand through his white hair. “You wish to try yourself against me?” He shrugs his jacket off. “Very well.”

  The leather jacket hits the broken asphalt, and I see it. Hundreds, thousands of black circuits meshed into his flesh. Like a disease, they eat up the left side of his body, all the way up his shoulder and arm and biceps.

  And it all glows with deep indigo lightning, warping the air around it.

  The power a thousand times stronger than Euphoria’s.

  Thanks, Fae-sight. I really needed to know that. Crap. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew… But I take a step to Euphoria’s side. “You’re not taking me—or her.”

  Glamma always said when you bite off more than you can chew, just spit some out.

  I square off against Agravaine. I’ll spit him out all right.

  We stand there like in the movies, both of us sizing the other one up. Why doesn’t he just rush me? Even now, the air is black and warping around him, and me… My white flame seems so small, so weak in comparison.

  Down below on the road, I see the blues and reds. The police are here. They’ll be looking for me.

  They won’t arrive in time.

  Agravaine steps in, and I summon up my power to take him down a peg—or a head.

  Nothing. Fizzles.

  “Come on! I’m doing the hand gesture right!”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” His smile is sharp as a shark’s. “Sleeper-princess power has to be trained.” He lifts his arm, and the black circuits swarm down his biceps to his forearm then fingertips, threatening to leap off his skin at me.

  That’s when the night splits with the sound of a car horn. Someone’s really leaning on it.

  Headlights slice the darkness, and an SUV tears up, tires squealing and spitting gravel. Tiny pebbles roll off my Docs. And why does that car look so familiar?

  The window rolls down.

  “Mom?”

  Not only is it my mom, but she’s got a ginormous gun.

  Correction:
that thing’s a hand cannon.

  She pulls the trigger—blam! blam! blam!—and Agravaine goes tuckus over teakettle. A few circuits fall from his fingers and squirm toward me.

  “Holy—! Mom?” Seriously? This is the woman who grounded me for riding a motorcycle? She’s wearing a leather jacket and toting a gun like freakin’ Clint Eastwood.

  She gets out of the car and rushes toward me, crushing the circuits under her— Wait. Is my mom wearing Docs?

  “Mom, what the—?”

  “Get in the car, Syl.” She holsters the gun in a move that would make ol’ Clint green with envy. “He won’t stay down for long, and I don’t have any iron bullets.” She fixes me with her best Mom stare. “Get in the car. And bring that damned dark Fae with you.” She points at Euphoria.

  I’m too freaked out to do anything but obey her.

  I grab Euphoria. She looks like she’s all leg, but dang, girl is heavy. I sling her non-infected hand over my shoulder, carefully not to touch the other one, and hoist her up.

  My knee screams in alarm. Appears my sleeper-princess super-strength has gone the way of the dodo. At least for now.

  And then my mom is there helping me.

  Who is this woman? And seriously, who needs an absentee father when I’ve got Supermom. Together, we carry Euphoria to the car and load her into the back seat. She’s so tall, her legs are bent up over my seat.

  I don’t care. I like being near her. Also, I kind of can’t wait to tease her about this a little. You mean flirt with her. Flirting, teasing—same diff.

  My mom gets behind the wheel and pulls out, all pedal to the metal and Fast and Furious. My heart is in my throat, and I’m grabbing the oh-crap handle for all I’m worth.

  The whole time, I’m glancing between her and Euphoria and the blue flashing lights receding out the back window.

  “Mom?”

  “What is it?” Her voice is all business, but I hear a tired note in it.

  A million things rise up in me. I want to ask her what the heck is going on—with her, with Euphoria, with me… But the farther we get from the Nanci, the more unreal everything becomes. I make a stupid excuse. “I… It’s not what it looks like.”

  She turns to me—one of those moments you have as a kid when you want to tell your parents to keep their eyes on the darn road. “It’s exactly what it looks like. And so are you.”

  Whoa. That’s not what I was expecting. “What do you—?”

  “You’re a sleeper-princess, Syl.”

  Shock rolls through me. “Wait, what?” She knew? She knows? “How do you…?” This entire thing hurts my brainmeats.

  “I know,” she says, her eyes severe on mine, “because I was once a sleeper-princess too.”.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rouen

  My heart

  Tied to the hearthstone

  I can never be free

  - Euphoria, “Heart & Hearthstone”

  The last thing I feel is the scorching white flame of Syl’s power. It strikes me in the chest, pulsing against my heartbeat. I curl in on myself, instinctively protecting the hearthstone as her sleeper-princess power takes me under. My consciousness slides away from me, and as my eyes close, I reach out for something, anything to slow my descent into darkness.

  There! A glimmer, a shimmer. A ley line.

  Perfect. I can use this. As the last dark Fae princess, I can use the ley line and my bond with the hearthstone to pull my consciousness away from my body and into dark Faerie. For a time. It’s called obtruding, and it’s dangerous as hell, especially with the hearthstone dying, but I risk it.

  I need to check on my people, on the hearthstone. And it’s not like I can regain consciousness in the real world—at least not until my body recovers from Syl’s blast.

  I reach for the ley line.

  It makes sense it’s so close to the tracks. When mortalkind first discovered us, this was their way of corralling us, controlling us. Iron railways mapping the surface of the world, carving up Earth’s natural magic—its ley lines—into manageable sections, severely limiting our access to all that power.

  I can’t do much with the ley line here, but even the weakest ley line is a natural gate to Faerie, and my bond with the hearthstone strengthens the way, keeping me from getting lost in the labyrinthine Snickleways that connect the realms.

  The moment I lose consciousness, I tap into the ley line and obtrude into UnderHollow.

  The velvety black Shroud peels back, and I step from the realm of the mortals and into the realm of the dark Fae—at least, my mind does. Normally I’d have the choice whether or not to take my body, but it’s currently lying there on the train tracks.

  Looking pretty darn good, I might add.

  Separated from my body, I can still travel here…for a time.

  UnderHollow opens up before me. My vision of the mortal realm begins to fade as all the pieces of dark Faerie click into place like a puzzle built before my very eyes. A broody-black castle on a wintry hill, the misty moors, shadowy crag mountains slagged with ice—one by one, the pieces slam down, shutters that block my view of the mortal world.

  My last view of the train tracks is of Syl and Agravaine.

  Run, Syl, I beg her from the other side. My heart seizes when she faces him, and pride surges inside me as she stands up against him.

  That’s my sleeper-princess. I knew she had it in her and—

  When, exactly, did she become my sleeper-princess? Now my heart is beating crazy-fast, and it’s not only because I’m afraid for her.

  By the bloody Hunt, she’s beautiful, strong, brave.

  And she’s not alone. Agravaine takes a step, then a car screeches up, and Syl’s mom gets out.

  My old enemy.

  And of course, I’m lying on the train tracks…unconscious. Not my finest moment.

  Georgina Gentry was a sleeper-princess before I was a Huntress—and way before she became Georgina Skye. She was a sleeper-princes when there were dozens of them, perhaps even hundreds.

  Before the fair Fae poisoned our hearthstone and started our downward spiral into the Harrowing void.

  Georgina’s changed. She’s gotten older, but she’s no slouch. She’s a dead shot with that gun of hers. She plugs Agravaine four good ones in the chest. Those aren’t iron bullets, but I’m relieved. Georgina is resourceful. She always was. Even after—

  UnderHollow finishes becoming around me, ice and snow and biting wind, and the mortal world fades away.

  Syl will get away. Relief burns in my breast. Good.

  When my mind returns to my body and I wake to Agravaine’s anger, his punishment, it’ll all be worth it.

  For now…it’s just me and UnderHollow.

  The halls of the royal palace are deserted, abandoned. Loneliness echoes with my every footstep. Everyone has gone into Winter’s Sleep to avoid being a drain on the hearthstone. Entire families, highborn and low, the arch-Eld, my father…

  Only Agravaine and I are left.

  The Horde slumbers, and only the Hunt remains. Agravaine, me, and his hounds, such as they are—more Moribund machine than dark Fae.

  Your emo is showing, Roue.

  I shake it off. It is what it is.

  Such was the decree. Before they succumbed to Winter’s Sleep, strands of dreamlike filaments binding them into a never-waking dream, the circle of seven arch-Eld put our fate in Agravaine’s hands.

  The sleeper-princesses, he whispered to them. Killing the sleeper-princesses will save us.

  And they believed him. My own father.

  I never got to say goodbye. Father… But then, my crime in wanting to team up with the sleeper-princess was glaring, and I was disgraced. My penance: to be infected with Moribund, bound even tighter to the Contract of Blood and Bone, a Contract that made me a Huntress of the sluagh and their Wild Hunt. Agravaine was all too happy to have me.

  After all, he’s always wanted me.

  Fat chance, buddy-boy.

  H
e had no chance when he was a lowly Huntsman and I a princess. Now I am less than royalty. My name and title stripped from me.

  And now…unless I give him Syl, I’ll never be free of the Contract that binds me to him.

  Fatter chance.

  I’ll never give him Syl.

  She’s the key to saving my people. Besides, I…like her.

  Like-like, Rouen?

  Tamping down on that thought, I close my eyes and dowse, stretching my senses toward the hearthstone at the center of the castle, the heart of the Winter Court. There…

  I feel it weakening in the darkness. Even though it’s devoured six sleeper-princesses. Even though Agravaine wanted to give it Syl.

  My realm is dying. And there’s nothing emo about it.

  I walk the cold, dark corridors, a prodigal daughter come home to find her realm in ruin. But we are not done yet. We stand on the brink of destruction, but I can pull us back.

  I can and I will.

  I must.

  I have no choice.

  A princess does the impossible for her people.

  I will do the impossible, and I will do it without harming Syl.

  Brave words, Rouen.

  When I wake up, Agravaine will Command me back after her, and this time he won’t slip up. All those times I twisted his words. This time, he’ll make sure to give me explicit instructions.

  He’s overconfident, but he’s not stupid. He knows I played him.

  He knows I’m into Syl.

  I’m not, the double-talking side of me insists.

  You are, my heart whispers back.

  The hearthstone pulses harder for a second, the thoughts of Syl rushing through me, strengthening my resolve, my will, pouring liquid strength into my limbs.

  Syl, Syl, Syl, the hearthstone seems to beat.

  Does it want her blood?

  At the idea of harming her, the pulse fades.

  Oookay…

  I try again, letting my thoughts of Syl run wild—the feel of her in my arms, warm and soft, dancing with her on the stage, so close we nearly breathed the same breath, right before things went to holy hell and high water.

  In answer, the hearthstone pulses, hard and fast.

  No. No way.

  The hearthstone doesn’t like the idea of me harming her. But it does like… I think of her in my arms, dancing, her body against mine, safe and sound…