by Nora Roberts
Near the ruined, flooded city of Mobile, troops from The Beach pushed in from the east to help drive the enemy to the barrier of the Gulf of Mexico.
In what would become known as the Summer of Light, Poe and his team mobilized to cut off Raider attacks in the Midwest, the Southwest. Troy and Starr with their band of magickals uprooted confinement centers.
Fallon, in steady rotation, joined each group in turn as they worked their way east and west, north and south.
Over three scorching days in August, where lightning strikes turned forests to blazing tinder, where the ground quaked and split like eggshells, she fought side by side with Duncan.
In the Dark Uncanny stronghold of Los Angeles, mansions had become palaces and prisons. Canyons jagged through the broken streets of Beverly Hills, and served as killing pits for those unfortunate enough to be captured. The stench from a decade of blood sacrifices on the black marble altar erected on Rodeo Drive stung the air.
In the flaming hills, faeries and elves fought to suppress the fires, worked to rescue any who’d managed to escape the city to hide in caves and canyons. And there, above the city where magicks clashed and slashed, the sky turned red.
Even as she fought, Fallon searched for the black dragon and its rider. But as they cut through the enemy’s numbers, drove them to the beaches, to the wild waves of the Pacific, she saw no sign of Petra.
When she rode Laoch through that red sky, over the hills where fires still sparked, where blackened trees rose like skeletons through the smoke, she scanned the city.
Not dead like D.C., but deeply wounded, with its bleeding not yet completely stanched. Its broken bones might heal over time, its raw scars might begin to blend into the landscape in another generation. This land, this city would become what those who settled on it worked to make it.
But never again, never again would innocent blood be spilled there in the name of the dark.
Duncan, Tonia, and their handpicked team would transport the surviving enemy to D.C. Dead City, she thought. There, with their magicks bound, they would remain.
She flew down for Faol Ban, called to Taibhse, and with them, flashed home.
It surprised her to find Fred and her three youngest working in her mother’s garden.
Fred pushed back her floppy yellow hat with its trailing ribbons and flowers around the crown, waved a hand. She wore pink-lensed sunglasses in the shape of hearts.
“Hi! Welcome home. We thought we’d give your mom a hand with the garden, since she’s so busy this summer.”
“She’ll appreciate it. We all do.”
The instant Fallon dismounted, Angel, her hair as sunny as her mother’s hat, ran over. “Can I brush Laoch, water him?”
“Sure. He’s earned a carrot, too.” And knowing the girl’s love affair with all things equine, Fallon stepped back.
“That made her day. You could use some brushing and watering yourself.”
“I guess so.” It struck Fallon that the kids hadn’t so much as blinked at the blood and soot all over her. Such was the world they lived in. She watched Willow fly out of the garden and all but fall over the wolf with hugs—attention Faol Ban seemed fine with.
“Max and Rainbow are training, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” Fred gripped her hands together, looked toward the barracks. “After the attack, they just . . .”
“This part is nearly over.”
“Is it?” Fred shifted her gaze to her youngest two while her boy tried to convince the wolf to fetch a stick. Such things were well beneath Faol Ban’s dignity.
“An end, a beginning. A chance, a choice. All of those bathed in blood and tears. But its sinews are sacrifice, courage, faith. Its heart is now, then, always love.”
As the vision ran through her, Fallon lifted her face to a sky not of murderous red but aching blue.
“Here is the earth, the air, the water, the fire, and the magicks that join them together. All of that, all, feed the light. Watch the light burn like a thousand suns, Queen Fred, and you’ll know when the sword strikes, the arrow flies, and the blood seals the end of the dark.”
Fallon’s eyes cleared, looked into Fred’s. “You have a new light inside you.”
“Well, wow.” Blowing out a breath, Fred took off her hat, fanned it at her face. “Nobody expects a prophecy, right? And that one was a pow with the wow.”
Fallon pointed to a chair on the patio. “Sit.”
“Maybe for a minute.”
When she did, Fallon poured a glass of the sun tea steeping on a table, chilled it with her hands, offered it.
“I’m sorry if I intruded. It just sort of beamed out at me.”
“That’s okay.” Fred sipped the tea, patted a hand on her belly. “Yeah, one more time. Crazy, right?”
“No. You and Eddie make beautiful children.”
“We really do. He’s such a good dad. The kids are missing him right now. He’s with Poe. They’re proud of him, but they miss him.”
“You, too.”
“I haven’t told him yet. I only felt the spark—felt it often enough to know—after he’d gone.”
“What a great welcome home he’ll have.” She crouched down. “You, from the beginning, Fred, you’ve been a light. You and Eddie. Your children will carry that light. You helped save the world. They’ll help heal it.”
“Is that another prophecy?”
“Not this time. It’s faith.”
She carried that faith with her into September when it seemed the fire and blood of battle would never end. She carried it with her each time Chuck intercepted another call for help, or the scouts learned of another stronghold.
She carried it to the clinic to keep the spark strong when she visited the wounded. She carried it to grave sites and memorials.
“We’ve got them on the run,” Duncan said.
They’d finished a meeting with commanders, team leaders, and now she sat with Duncan and her father.
She knew what Duncan wanted—he wanted her to signal the time had come to finish it.
“The constant, focused attacks have paid off,” Simon agreed. “We’re still going to see some skirmishes, but we’ve broken the backs. The DUs are the primary problem at this point, like we discussed. We can’t give them the time or opportunity to regroup.”
“We won’t. I don’t know why it’s not time to finish it, I just know it’s not. We’ve had multiple and conflicting reports on Petra, but nothing concrete. She’s part of the circle, and we’ll need to confront her, defeat her, to fuse that circle and end it.”
“Then we draw her to Scotland,” Duncan argued. “It ends there.”
His determination to finish it, his absolute certainty they could, spilled through the gears of her mind like sand.
Irritating. Irritating.
She found it difficult to keep the edge out of her voice. “On our timetable, not hers, on our terms, not hers. And we need to know more about how to finish it, and her. The black dragon. And what they feed in the forest. We can’t afford to fail.”
“We can’t win if we don’t fight.”
And gave up the fight, led with the edge. “A year ago the DU ruled New York, D.C., Los Angeles, and more. The PWs and military hunted us like animals. Now they don’t. We have fought, are fighting. Every day people fight, bleed, die. Do you think I don’t want to end it?”
“Hold on—”
“You hold on,” she snapped back at Duncan. “I’ll know when I know.”
On a flick of temper, she flashed away.
“She’s tired,” Simon said after a humming moment. “And frustrated—that was her tired and frustrated voice.”
“I know it,” Duncan replied.
“I guess you do. She’s also worried. Not about winning this, but about sending more troops out, and burying more. It’s a constant weight on her.”
“I know that, too.” Duncan pushed up to pace. “She’s not alone in that.”
“No, she’s not.”
> “I feel something pushing in me, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s wrong and it’s time, or because she’s right and I want it to be time. Either way, she’s pissed now and a lot less likely to listen.”
Brooding, Simon noted. Well, he couldn’t fault that, as he enjoyed a good brood himself from time to time. He held his peace, let the boy brood while he studied him.
Unlike a lot of the other soldiers, Duncan hadn’t gone for the braid—or braids. His hair spilled and curled loose, midnight dark. No tats, either, no beads, no charms.
Like Fallon’s, his sword was always at his side. And like her, he had a tall, rangy body, well muscled. Well, the male version, Simon thought.
His boots showed miles of wear and battle scars—literal battle scars. He was a damn good soldier, a canny commander.
Broody green eyes, scruff on his face. Simon scrubbed a hand over his own, knew he couldn’t fault that, either.
And he couldn’t find fault in the boy—man, Simon corrected—for loving his daughter.
“Take her flowers.”
“What?” Duncan stopped pacing, stared. “Flowers?”
“Yeah, flowers. Something you pick yourself adds to it, so something wild. If it smells good, you rack up another point.”
“Wildflowers that smell good?”
“That’s right. It’ll catch her off guard. She might still be pissed, but she’ll be off-balance, too. Then state your case.”
“Flowers are everywhere anyway.”
“Trust me.”
“Okay.” Hesitating, he slid his hands in his pockets. “So. When this is finished, I want . . .”
“I knew this was coming.” Simon sighed.
“When it’s finished, I want us—Fallon and me—to get a place, make a place, find a place. Together. I’d like to get your blessing on that.”
Simon sat back. “You’re never going to be a farmer.”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I’ve got Travis and Ethan for that. Born farmers, both of them. She’ll need some land though. She likes to grow things. She’d start feeling closed in if she lived right inside a town. Nearby, that would do for her, but she needs room to breathe.”
“I love her, Simon. I’m going to do whatever I need to do to give her what she wants, what makes her happy.”
“I wish I didn’t know that was true, then I could say get the hell away from my baby, and I’d keep her with me. But I do know it’s true. You can take that as a blessing.” He rose, extended a hand. “One thing,” he said when he gripped Duncan’s. “No, two things. Finish it first, all the way. And don’t be too much of an asshole with my girl.”
“Deal. Both counts.”
He brought her flowers. He felt like an idiot, especially since he’d tracked her to a meadow loaded with them, but he brought her a fistful of wild lilies.
She stared at them like she’d never seen a stupid flower before, and made him feel like more of an idiot. “What are those for?”
“They’re for you.” He shoved them into her hands, then followed up with a simple truth. “They’re like you. Bright and beautiful and full of light. So.”
Then he saw Simon had been right, by the way she smiled, the way she bent her head to draw in their scent. Just a little off-balance.
“I can be sorry for pressuring you. It’s just . . . I feel something pushing in me. I feel it pushing harder and harder. I keep seeing the stone circle, the crows, the lightning. I feel it, Fallon, pushing in that dead wood, gloating in there, and my hand itches for my sword. Tonia, too. It’s the same for her.”
“I know it. I know it, Duncan, and it only makes it more frustrating to know not yet. Still not yet. I’ve asked. I’ve cast circles and asked, but it’s the one question they don’t answer. I’ve looked in the crystal. I see the dragon, the black dragon, Petra on its back. And nothing I do, nothing we do, stops her.
“I’ve looked in the fire, searched the flames. I see Tonia bleeding on the ground, the dragon breathing death, a rain of black lightning. And the circle, the center opens wider, wider, and more dark pours out. It pulls you in. I can’t stop it. And I’m alone.”
It was his turn to lead with the edge. “For fuck’s sake. Why am I just hearing this?”
“I had to think. What does it mean? And I know it means that can happen if we don’t wait. It can happen if we don’t find the way to kill the dragon, destroy Petra.”
“We’re stronger than she is.”
“I believe that, but what’s there, in that place? It feeds her just as she feeds it. And the dragon—”
She broke off, eyes narrowing. “The dragon,” she repeated. “We need to slay the dragon. It knows its own weaknesses, right? If you want to know how to kill a dragon, ask a dragon. I need to talk to Vivienne.”
He grabbed her hand in case she intended to flash away, then and there. “No spell in you for dragon slaying? You’re going to Canada?”
“I don’t know what kind of protection it may have been given. I’m not going to Canada. I need to talk to Vivienne on my ground, not hers. I need Chuck.”
She used Arlys as well to help her craft an invitation both diplomatic and flattering. She asked her mother to bake a Rainbow Cake. She took a ruby from the vaults in D.C., and with it crafted and conjured a gift for the Red Queen.
Vivienne, resplendent in emerald green, arrived with her entourage. Fallon met her alone, and chose the patio, as the gardens held their summer glory.
“How lovely it is here. Such a blooming. And, of course, your vegetables thrive.”
“We’re farmers,” Fallon said simply. “Please sit. I give you my mother’s regrets. She and my father were called away only this morning.”
“Oh? Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?”
“A small band of PWs to handle. Ne t’en fais pas. Before she left, my mother made a cake in your honor. We call it a Rainbow Cake.” Fallon served a slice. “I thought you might enjoy it with some faerie wine.”
“Perfect.” Emeralds glittered at her ears as she nibbled. “And delicious.”
“I hope you’ll accept this token of our gratitude for your loyalty and comradeship. New York could not have been brought back into the light without your help.”
“My people rejoiced with yours.” She opened the box Fallon had tied with a fancy gold bow. Then wonder spread over her face as she lifted out the curled ruby dragon, laid it in the palm of her hand. “Oh! C’est magnifique. C’est merveilleux! Merci, mon amie, merci beaucoup. Je suis— Ah, English, I want to express myself in English. I’m touched, very deeply. I feel your light in this treasure.”
“Duncan sketched the dragon—you—to help me with the creation. It’s a gift, Vivienne, given in sincere gratitude.”
“Yes. And it will be precious to me.” She set it carefully back in the box, nibbled more cake. “But I, as I’m a cunning woman myself, sense more than a thank-you.”
“Yes, but whatever your answer, the gift is yours, and the light in it, yours.”
“What is the question?”
“While we bring light to the world, there’s still dark. And there’s one who seeks, above all, to serve the source of the dark, which she does with human sacrifice. Children.”
“Mes dieux. Any and all who prey on children are the evil, the deepest and darkest of the evil, whatever form they take.”
“We’re of one mind on that. This woman is my cousin, blood of my blood.”
“Je suis désolée. You have my true sympathy. We have no choice in our blood relations, n’est-ce pas?”
“No, we don’t. Above New York, at the moment of our victory, this cousin, this evil, struck down a friend, a brother of my heart.”
Vivienne reached over, laid a hand over Fallon’s. “I know of this. The young elf, so handsome, who was with you the first time I came to visit you. Je suis profondément désolée, mon amie. I know you sought solitude in your grief. I hope you have found comfort.”
“I found it, and renewed purpose
, and even stronger faith. I’ve seen her, in visions and dreams, in Scotland, at the shield. She rides a black dragon.”
“This I’ve heard, of course.” She trailed a finger over the carved ruby. “Some can turn even beauty into evil.”
“To end the dark, to seal the shield once again, I have to destroy the source. To destroy the source, I must destroy my cousin. To destroy my cousin, I must destroy the dragon.”
Fallon waited a beat. “How do I kill it?”
Vivienne lifted an eyebrow, sipped wine. “You would ask me?”
“I’ve seen, in these dreams, in the fire, in the glass, arrows, even bespelled, fail to penetrate the dragon. Aimed true at the heart, they break and fall. Magicks fall away as well. It feeds from the source. Yes, I would ask you. How do I kill it?”
“You would ask me?” Vivienne repeated, in a voice gone cold. “You would ask me to give you the means to destroy myself? You offer cake and wine, offer a symbol of what I am, then ask me to reveal how you might kill me should you want what I have?”
“I’ve given you my oath. What’s yours is yours. Why would I wish to harm so valued a friend and ally?”
“There are others who might covet.”
“You are and always will be under my shield, as will and always will be your people. Help me end this, so your people and mine, so all people can have peace. The gods brought you to me, I believe that, so we could prove ourselves to each other. And having proven, I could ask you this question. You would search your heart and give me the answer.”
On a huff, Vivienne stood, stalked around the patio with her emerald gown swirling. “You ask me to put my life into your hands.”
“She lures children, young girls most usually, out of their beds, takes them into a wood where only death and dark remain. She rends them there, on an altar, to feed the beast. The dragon protects her, kills for her, burns for her. Should I show you?”
Vivienne threw out a hand. “No. I’ve seen enough of what this evil can do.”
“The last she disemboweled on that altar was just sixteen. Her name was Aileen.”
“Mes dieux, merde, ça pute!” When she ran out of curses—that took awhile—Vivienne turned to stare hard into Fallon’s eyes. “Who will you tell?”
