Cú sídhe.
There were all kinds of demonic dogs in the Book of Brigid, some with multiple heads, others with teeth that could rend a man into fillets, and those who could predict a person’s death. But none were as fearsome as the cú sídhe, an intelligent hound larger than a full-grown bull with paws the size of a human head.
One bark of the cú sídhe stopped a person’s heart for three beats, the second made their blood boil, and the third aroused a terror so deep that whoever failed to reach shelter before hearing it would drop dead and forfeit their soul.
“Everybody,” I screamed down to the riders. “Get into the carriage.”
Aengus stared up at us and frowned. “But we just caught the doe.”
“Leave it,” I shouted as Rosalind steered our capall around in the air.
The cú sídhe’s low, guttural growl tightened my skin, making our capall hollow its back and raise its front legs. I lurched backward and clung onto Rosalind, who flapped her wings to keep us airborne.
One of the capall flying level with us bucked off his rider, who plummeted toward the wildflowers with a scream but another soldier raced ahead on his mount and rescued his colleague.
Enbarr raced toward us, his red eyes blazing, and lunged toward the cú sídhe, who stepped back toward the trees and snarled.
Rosalind’s muscles tightened. She charged toward the coach’s door, breathing fast. I wasn’t sure if she had encountered one of these monsters before, but her heart beat so hard that I felt its reverberations against my chest.
One of the guards standing at the coach’s front door beckoned for us to hurry.
I grabbed her arm. “We’ve got to let everyone else board first in case those guards shut the door on the others.”
She ignored me and rode her capall through the door, who trotted to a stall and blew a relieved sigh through its nostrils. I scrambled off the mount, landed in a crouch and ran to the coach’s front window. The cú sídhe now ran beneath us in the daylight and glowered up at Enbarr, its silver eyes glittering in the morning sun.
Hoofs clomped behind me on the hay-covered floor, indicating that one of the riders had reached the carriage. I turned to find it was two soldiers riding one capall. The others led them toward the stalls to make way for another and another, until there were only two males left.
A low bark exploded from outside. It tore through my skin, vibrated along my nerves, and pierced my chest. My heart clenched so hard that the pain brought me to my knees. Choked gasps filled my ears—from the capall, from the soldiers, from my throat.
I knelt with my palms on the floor, struggling for air. It seemed that a coach with an open door didn’t count as shelter. If the cú sídhe barked two more times, everybody on board would die. We had to close that door.
The pressure around my heart loosened, and I slammed my fist on the glass. “Enbarr, get away from that dog!”
The skeletal capall turned his head and snorted out a cloud of smoke. I clenched my jaw. A winged horse skeleton had no heart to stop, no blood to boil, and no life to lose.
The last guard leaped into the coach with Aengus taking up the rear. I had no idea where the capall who had thrown off his rider had gone, but the cú sídhe leaped up and snapped at Enbarr’s leg, making me clap a hand over my mouth.
As the dog descended, I caught sight of the doe sprinting toward us, her green eyes bulging with terror. My heart skipped. Was she seeking shelter?
“Enbarr.” I slammed my palms on the window. “Fly down.”
He shook his head.
With a snarl, I turned to the door, where a soldier tried to push it closed.
“Rosalind,” I yelled. “Raise the doe from the ground with your magic!”
With a sharp nod, she raced to the half-open gap and stretched out her palms. The tips of the ropes reached through the door, and she snatched them out of the air. Aengus appeared behind her and tried to reach for the ropes, but she slapped his hand away.
The cú sídhe barked again. Lightning bolts of pain shot through my veins, as though my blood had turned to molten fire. A cry tore from my lips, and my legs collapsed. Pain raced through my system, wreaking havoc through my skin, my bones, my organs. It reached the tiny capillaries of my eyeballs, the roots of my hair, the very tips of my extremities.
Rosalind stiffened and fell to the side. With an agonized roar, Aengus caught her with one arm and grabbed the ropes with the other.
One more bark. A shudder raced down my spine. One more bark, and we would die from terror.
“Close the door,” I rasped to the guards, but nobody moved. They all lay on the floor, convulsing.
I crawled on my hands and knees toward the door. It was one of those sliding contraptions used to save space. I placed my trembling hands on its metal surface and pushed.
My biceps strained against the dead weight, and pain quickened across my nerve endings, making my muscles seize. I threw my body against the door, once, twice, thrice, each time, my feeble efforts only moving it a few inches.
The doe’s forelegs appeared through the doorway, followed by her head. White-hot agony seared my veins, burned my senses, but I kept pushing, pushing. The doe didn’t matter. The curse didn’t matter. If I didn’t close that door, we would all die when the cú sídhe opened its jaws.
With one mighty heave, Aengus fell back with his arms around the doe, who cried out with what sounded like relief. A heartbeat after the door slammed shut, the cú sídhe made its third bark.
I fell face-first on the floor and panted. My hair formed an orange curtain, cocooning me in the scent of horses. Hay and dust stuck to my damp face, and my eyes burned with tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said to nobody, everybody. “We could have been killed.”
For the next few moments, nobody spoke. As I caught my breath, I raised my head to the window to find Enbarr taking us above the shaded woods with the cú sídhe on our right. A groan reverberated through my throat. What was he doing? We needed to stay away from the dark, not hurtle toward it.
Somebody groaned. I think it was one of the guards. Relief washed through my veins, chasing out the pain. I stumbled to my feet and checked on Rosalind, who still lay within Aengus’ arm, her chest rising and falling with even breaths.
“Enbarr?” I croaked.
The capall turned his head to the left and snapped his jaws at an unseen enemy. I crawled through the straw, past Aengus and Rosalind and the slumbering doe, and pressed my head against the window.
Somehow, the cú sídhe managed to run through the air alongside Enbarr’s left and was herding us into the Summer Court.
Chapter 16
The carriage hurtled over the shaded treetops and toward the darkness of the Summer Court, making the wall lanterns flare to life. A sudden movement jerked us aside. I tripped over a fallen guard and braced both hands on the wall for balance.
Outside and through the window, Enbarr flew through the shadows, his skeleton glowing like a specter. The capall roared and swiped his wings at the cú sídhe, whose deep green fur curled like wisp and smoke.
Barks and growls resounded through the shelter of the coach, their volume so loud I felt the floors vibrate through the soles of my boots. The monstrous dog flashed its silver eyes and snapped at Enbarr’s bones with teeth that glinted in the dark.
Giant fists of panic pounded at my ears, and my breaths shallowed as the creature maneuvered us further and further into the dark. What did the cú sídhe want? According to the legends, faeries sent it to the human realm to abduct nursing mothers.
My spine stiffened. What if it was an agent of the Fear Dorcha? I clenched my teeth and balled my hands into fists.
“Your Majesty.” Rosalind rose from Aengus’ embrace, still trembling from the cú sídhe bark that boiled her blood. “The Royal Suite is protected by a hundred layers of magic. You must leave, now.”
I shook my head. “Everyone is going with me.”
She parted her lips to protest, but
the anger burning through my veins made her clamp her mouth shut.
Aengus rose to his feet, slung the unconscious doe over his shoulder, and reached down for Rosalind’s hand. She ignored him and pushed herself up onto shaky legs.
Shoulders slumping, he turned to me with a sad smile and swept out an arm, indicating for me to go first.
“Thanks,” I glanced from the doe to Rosalind, who walked ahead. “For helping.”
He shook his head. “Nothing is too much for the one who pulled me out of that mist. I’ve had a thousand years of creatures worse than a barking dog.”
I gulped at the thought of spending millennium of being chased by Fomorians, tortured, eaten, only to awaken and face the same thing again. As we passed guards slumped at the stables and the walls, I ushered them to join us. All of them took up my offer for safety, and we stepped into the middle carriage.
Turning to Aengus, I offered him a smile. “If Melusina wasn’t a nathair, I would let you have the killing blow.”
“I’ll soften her up for you,” he said with a bloodthirsty grin.
In the royal suite, Rosalind already gathered Cliach and Nessa, who brought a steaming cauldron and a pile of bowls. The thirteen of us squeezed ourselves into our carriage, and the driver, a teal-haired male, transformed the door and its surrounding wall into a window seat with a view of Enbarr’s back.
Enbarr ran along the barrier between shadow and absolute darkness, butting, snapping, and kicking at the monstrous hound. Anxiety rippled through my heart. If we had two magical mounts, one of them could fight the cú sídhe while the other pulled us back into the light.
The cú sídhe growled and cut across Enbarr once more, making the skeletal capall gallop further to the right. Outside, the scenery dimmed from dark shadows to a starless night so black I could almost taste its bitterness on my tongue.
Twelve sets of eyes stared at me, their nervous expressions indicating they were waiting for me to give them permission to relax.
“Please find somewhere to sit.” I swept my arm from the sofa to the window seat. Counting the dining chairs, there was enough seating space for at least twelve.
As everyone settled into the seats, the soldiers pulled out wineskins and handed them around. I exhaled a weary breath and walked to the other side of the space. In the dim bedside illumination, Drayce’s hair looked as green as the cú sídhe’s fur, and his skin was as pale as Enbarr’s bones.
A breath caught in the back of my throat. I hurried to his bedside and placed my palm on his cheek. Cold, clammy skin yielded under my fingertips. I checked his nostrils for signs of breathing, but his breath was cold and even shallower than before.
Sorrow clenched at my heart, and I placed a hand over my mouth to stifle a cry. The bark must have stopped his heart, boiled his blood. With no soul in his body, would he ever heal from the cú sídhe’s attack?
Someone behind me screamed.
I whipped around to everyone standing again. Wineskins lay strewn on the wooden floor, pouring out their contents. They all stared at the window, Aengus with his fists balled, Nessa with her eyes round, and Rosalind with a hand over her chest. Cliach cowered between a pair of soldiers, holding up his harp like a shield.
My mouth dried, and a rapid pulse fluttered in my throat. I couldn’t see what they were looking at from Drayce’s bedside.
“Is it…” My words faltered, but I tamped down the anxiety roiling through my gut and forced my voice to calm. We were behind a hundred layers of magic. “Is it the cú sídhe?”
“The Dearg Due,” Cliach screamed.
I rushed forward, my gaze turned to the window. The carriage lights illuminated what appeared to be a banshee. A female glared at us through amber eyes, her palms pressed against the window. Tendrils of blood-red hair twisted and curled about her beautiful face like serpents. It spilled over a tattered gown of gray and white, which floated off her body like a shroud.
“What did you call her?” I asked.
Cliach melted behind the soldiers and whimpered. “Dearg Due.”
I turned to Nessa and Rosalind, who stood together at one end of the sofa. “Do you know anything about this female?”
They both shook their heads, and I glanced around at Aengus and the soldiers, who also gave me the same response.
“I can’t bear to look at her,” Cliach cried. “Turn off the lights!”
“Is she anything like the daughter you trapped in the lake?” I took another glance at the female outside, who raised her head, seeming to examine the window’s seams.
Cliach licked his dry lips. “There’s a centuries-old legend of a beautiful maiden who died under terrible circumstances. Her ghost is said to haunt these lands, and they call her the Dearg Due.”
“She’s probably feeding on your fear,” Nessa muttered. “Keep talking like that and you’ll give her enough power to smash through that glass and drag you into the dark.”
Cliach fell to his knees and sobbed. The female at the window pressed her tongue against the glass, making my insides ripple with disgust. Nessa was right.
“What can we do to stop this?” I asked.
“Turn off the lights,” Cliach screamed.
“Do it,” I said to the driver. “Maybe she’ll go away if we’re not there to entertain her with our fear.”
The lights dimmed, and the female floated out of sight. As the carriage’s interior fell dark, I leaned against the divider sectioning off the bedroom and exhaled a long breath. What in the name of all that was holy would I do about Drayce? The Fear Dorcha had taken his soul, and it looked like his body was dying or being consumed by the moss.
I reached into my pocket and rolled the ring between my fingers. Was this the key to getting him back? If it meant giving up the magic I had gained, I would do it without hesitation.
A tiny voice in my head whispered a treacherous thought. If Queen Melusina used the ring to murder Drayce’s father, would it also turn me into a husk?
The others settled into their seats, and the resonant tunes of a harp filled the air. It was a lullaby of repeating notes that reminded me of being cradled as a child by the dark-haired woman in the village of my childhood. The tension around my shoulders melted, and I closed my eyes and focussed on the notes.
“Let me tell you about the Dearg Due,” Cliach murmured in dulcet tones.
I cracked open an eye and turned to the window, but our surroundings were a perfect black.
“There was once a maiden, beautiful and fair,” he crooned. “She fell for a penniless lad in her village and wanted to marry him. Her father was a man who valued gold more than love, he betrothed his daughter to a wicked and rich man—”
“Wait,” a male voice said in the dark. “That’s the story of Ecne.”
“Ecne was the maiden who drowned in her own tears,” Cliach replied, his words clipped with irritation. “This maiden’s husband locked her in a tower and let her pine for a lost love who didn’t come to her rescue.”
I folded my arms and exhaled a breath. Perhaps it was foolish to immerse ourselves in the dark, but with the cú sídhe riding beside us, we were trapped in this carriage until it lost interest. There was no telling how its magic would affect us if we went out with our ears plugged. We were relying on Enbarr to get us out of the Summer Court.
Cliach’s melody wrapped around my senses, and I relaxed further against the wall.
“She didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t sleep a wink as desperation drove her into the depths of despair. The maiden starved to death, and the villagers laid her to rest beneath the earth.”
A clink-clink-clink sounded, like kitten claws on glass. I shook off a shudder and focused on the rest of the story.
“Her thirst for vengeance was deeper than the ocean, wider than the gulf between life and death.” Cliach’s melody turned mournful. “She rose from her grave, slipped into the house of the father who sold her like cattle and stole the breath from out of his lungs.”
The clin
king turned into a sharp tapping that made my heart pound. I inhaled a deep, fortifying breath. It was just the female outside the window, trying to feed on our fear.
“Not satisfied with punishing her greedy father, she attacked her husband, drank his blood, and became the Dearg Due!” Someone, probably Cliach, stamped his foot on the wood floor, making my heart leap into my throat and eliciting everybody’s gasps.
I clutched my chest and snarled through clenched teeth, “We’re already in a cursed court, being herded to goodness-knows-where by one of the deadliest creatures known to faeries, and have a specter at the window who probably wants to come in. Stop scaring everyone.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.” Cliach chuckled. “From that moment onward, the Dearg Due got a taste for blood and lured men to their deaths with her deadly kiss. The end.”
Something fell to the floor, sounding heavier than a foot.
“Turn on the lights,” I snapped.
Dim lanterns flickered to life and then brightened, illuminating the royal suite. My gaze snapped to the left of the room, to the far end of the sofa.
The red-haired female sat atop a soldier with her face pressed against his, the red-nailed fingers of her left hand holding his head into place. She braced her right hand on the window seat, where the soldiers slumped against each other, and one of them lay unmoving on the floor.
With an inhuman speed, the female shoved the soldier aside, scrambled onto Cliach’s lap, and grasped his head between her fingers. Her nails burrowed beneath his black hair, making him freeze in place.
Dearg Due.
Panic exploded across my chest, propelling me across the room toward the murderous creature. The remaining soldiers around them jumped to their feet and skittered away from the fiend.
Without thinking, I grabbed the dagger from my sword belt. My hand sizzled and burned, but I plunged the iron into the female’s back. She released Cliach with a screech, her spine arching, her mouth opening wide with a piercing scream. Instead of teeth, her maw undulated with rows upon rows of fleshy, hairlike protrusions.
Mate of the Fae King (Dark Faerie Court Book 2) Page 14
