by Melissa Marr
The Dark King nodded. His shadowy guardians were watching, but immobile. Their bodies were illuminated by the flames.
Bananach shook off the fire, shed it and most of her wings in a horrific shudder.
“Move.” Niall raised a sword.
“No.” Aislinn let vines come to her hand. Soil. Vines need soil. So Aislinn drew earth to her in a great tug, heard the roar of it coming behind her, and watched as it rolled in on either side of her and covered Bananach.
The raven-faery’s body was drowning in the weight of the now-boiling mud, tangled by the miniature white roses that sprang from the earth.
“She cannot kill now,” Aislinn pronounced.
The Dark King stepped into the mud and drove a shadow-wrought broadsword into the earth up to the hilt.
“Blood feeds the magick,” a corn-husk-dry voice said.
Aislinn turned to see Far Dorcha watching.
“Death feeds the soil,” he added.
In front of them, Niall sat down in the mud. Despite his battered and bruised body, the Dark King was smiling. He looked at her and said, “Seth was right.”
The Dark Man nodded. “He was.”
Perplexed, Aislinn looked from one to the other.
With one hand, Niall still held on to the broadsword; with the other, he wiped blood and sweat from his face. “Seth said we could kill her without all of us dying. Wasn’t sure if he was right.”
Far Dorcha chuckled.
“Where is he?” Aislinn’s poise faltered. “I looked during the . . . during . . . Is he? Where is he?”
“I put up a barrier to keep Seth safe when I got here,” Niall said. “He’s safe, Ash. Bananach couldn’t reach him.”
A strange look passed between Niall and Far Dorcha, but Aislinn wasn’t interested in asking why. Later, maybe, but right now, she had two more pressing matters to tend to. She nodded at Niall and then called to the death-fey, who had turned away already. “Far Dorcha?”
He paused. His expression was no more readable than it had been when she’d met him, but she thought a flicker of sorrow crossed his face.
“You offered me an exchange when we met,” she reminded him. “I know what I want.”
“What do you ask?”
“Whatever Keenan and Donia need,” she said. “If necessary, I will owe you a favor. Not a death, but I would put myself in your debt if I had to.”
Far Dorcha stared at her, but he said nothing. Instead, he nodded, and then strode away.
Chapter 38
If he had it all to do over, the Dark Man didn’t think he would change any of it. There was sorrow over the death of so many of the fey, but it wasn’t the first time they’d been so destructive. In the past, their quarrels had bled into the mortal world. They didn’t squander their immortality often, but they still made foolish—or brave—choices from time to time. The losses reminded them that they weren’t impervious to some wounds.
Brutal wounds.
Steel-inflicted wounds.
Faery-made wounds.
He watched his sister collect the corpses, saw the shades gathering in the air around him, and shook his head. It was not joyous to have a sudden influx of shades to contend with.
I don’t seek subjects.
Ankou stopped, frowned at him, and then gestured in a wide arc around her. He stood invisible to faery eyes—just as shades were—and watched the former Summer King grieve.
The Winter Court could be his if Donia died. It was a natural order. The child of Winter would take his mother’s court. He would grieve, grow bitter, and eventually his mourning would warp into something malicious.
Which would be tedious.
“Let’s hope you make better choices than your parents did, Keenan,” Far Dorcha said.
The Dark Man had offered all the assistance he could without being asked. He could aid the injured Winter Queen because of his debt to the Summer Queen, but there were still natural rules. Some sacrifices must be made willingly. He walked past the guards, and just as he approached the mourning faery, he made himself visible again.
When Death stood over them, Keenan wasn’t sure whether it was to take Donia or not, but he wasn’t going to give her up.
Not now. Not ever.
“Far Dorcha.” Keenan bowed his head as reverently as he could with Donia clutched in his arms. “I need your help.”
The Dark Man’s expression was completely unreadable. “What do you have to offer?”
“I want to give her my Winter,” Keenan said. “My life if she needs it.”
Far Dorcha laughed.
“Mercy,” Keenan begged. “I’ll give everything I have if you save her.”
“And if Bananach were to escape because of your choices? What of the court you’ve served? Of her”—he stroked a hand over Donia’s bloodied shoulder—“court? Of Niall? Of Aislinn? What of all those who—”
“I don’t care. Only Donia matters,” Keenan insisted.
“If I offer you the choice between her life and all of theirs?”
“Hers,” Keenan answered without hesitation.
The Dark Man gestured in the air beside him, and a stone altar, the top covered in thick furs, appeared. “Your immortal life or hers?”
“Take mine; take whatever you need.” Keenan glanced at the altar.
Far Dorcha pointed at the fur-covered thing. “I mean her no harm.”
Carefully, Keenan lowered Donia onto the altar. “What do you need?”
“Do you willingly offer your Winter and your immortal life for hers?” Far Dorcha asked. “If you say yes—”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps wait to hear the terms?”
Keenan shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
The Dark Man shrugged, and in less than a heartbeat, Keenan collapsed to the ground. He felt like everything inside of him was being ripped out. As he stifled a cry of pain, a gasp escaped, and with it a breath of icy air stretched toward Donia.
“Could’ve listened to the terms,” Far Dorcha muttered. He nudged Keenan with a boot-clad foot. “Scream.”
So Keenan did. He let the sound of the pain inside him loose, and the frosty air that was extending to Donia grew thicker with each breath. As the Winter he’d been born with was violently torn from his body, it flowed into Donia.
He watched as it healed her, knit the tears in her flesh, and made her whole again. He saw her sit up, still blood-covered but uninjured. The horror on her face as she saw him on the ground screaming was almost enough to make him close his eyes, but if this was it, he wanted to see her as long as he could.
She struggled to get down from the altar, but couldn’t. Her lips formed a word he couldn’t hear but knew was his name. She turned her furious gaze to Far Dorcha and snarled something at him.
Keenan heard none of it. He felt heaviness descend on him, a weight unlike anything he’d ever known, and he couldn’t open his mouth to make another sound. His eyes started to close, but he saw her as she jumped from the altar.
And then she vanished. Everyone in the street faded until he was suddenly alone.
So this is dying.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. The former Summer King closed his eyes and lay back on the street.
Chapter 39
The shadow wall in front of him was ripped aside, and Seth could see the remains of the battle on the ground for a moment. Then the room grew blindingly bright under the glow of the faery who strode through those remaining fights with no guards, no soldiers, nothing but her own sunlight to protect her. Ash. Seth watched his rescuer walk up to the cage—which was now a good forty feet above the ground.
Aislinn reached out and gripped the bars with both hands. The metal glowed as brightly as the fire poker had, and then broke. She bent the two bars toward her.
On the ground below her, Bananach’s faeries attempted to evade Summer Court guards and Dark Court faeries. A Dark Court faery impaled one of Bananach’s Ly Ergs with a morning star. The spike on the macelike weapo
n pierced the faery, and he screamed. His thread blinked out of existence. After so many threads had ended, Seth felt physically sick with the awareness of the losses. Lives were ending because of lies and machinations; the power-hungry Bananach had condemned both her followers and her opposition. Deaths that didn’t need to happen. War was always contemptible, but war for no reason other than greed was unforgivable.
Seth didn’t want Aislinn to see the horror in his eyes; did not know the words to speak of what he’d seen, how helpless he’d been. How terrified for her. She was here now, alive and apparently rescuing him. With blood on her jeans.
The silent Summer Queen extended her hands toward him, and Seth stepped into the seemingly empty air, trusting that she knew what she was doing. Until this moment, as far as he’d known, his girlfriend couldn’t walk on air, but she obviously was doing it.
And holding on to me as she does so.
He suddenly felt like one of the cartoon characters who steps off a cliff, as if looking down would make him plummet. Despite that, he glanced at their feet and saw what looked like sunbeams under each of them. The sunbeams slowly lowered, and he and Aislinn were standing on the warehouse floor.
Seth saw Tavish outside the door. The Summer Court advisor held a thin sliver of steel that would look harmless to most mortals, but was deadly to faeries.
Tavish told Aislinn, “I will leave a few of our guards here with theirs to help look after Niall and . . . the others. You should go. We will tidy up the rest.”
As Tavish spoke, Seth realized that there were words the Summer Court advisor was studiously avoiding, and he wished that he could see threads that were currently invisible to him.
Aislinn looked at Tavish. “Donia?”
“She will survive. She has departed . . . with Keenan.” Tavish looked heartsick for a moment. “Her guards have taken them both from here.”
Seth couldn’t tell what Tavish was hiding, but he didn’t want to ask just then. Whatever grief Tavish was keeping from Aislinn would have to wait.
“She hurt you.” Aislinn looked at the burn along the side of Seth’s face and then directly at his eyes. “Are you . . . all right aside from this?”
Seth glanced at Tavish, who bowed his head with an unfamiliar degree of respect and stepped away to allow them some measure of privacy.
“My head feels like it’s going to split from the things I’ve . . . seen,” he started, but the temptation to tell her all he had seen—and could see yet—vied with the desire to do the very thing she’d asked of him when he returned from Faerie: let the world wait. “I want to tell you . . . I need to tell you, but . . . later.”
She nodded.
Hand in hand, Aislinn and Seth walked through the warehouse; she didn’t seem to even register the fact that vines entangled fighters as she passed them. Behind her, the ensnared faeries who had fought with Bananach’s forces were killed by rowan and Hounds.
Just outside the warehouse, Far Dorcha stood with Niall. Ankou walked around, gathering the dead and placing them in a long black coach that was parked in the street. She sang softly to herself as she lifted bodies into her arms.
Far Dorcha nodded at them as they approached, and then his gaze returned to Niall and he beckoned with one finger as if hooking something and tugging it toward him. “Out. Now.”
Irial’s shade took form and stepped out of Niall’s body.
Aislinn gasped.
The dead Dark King ignored everyone but the living Dark King. He turned to face Niall. “You’re as stubborn as ever.”
“But not insane,” Niall said.
“True.” Irial lifted a hand as if he would touch Niall’s battered face. “You defended our court admirably. I knew you were meant to be the Dark King.”
Niall shook his head, but he was smiling now. “You aren’t ever satisfied, are you? You were right, Irial. They are mine. The court is mine.” Niall held up bloodied hands. “I will kill or die for them.”
“And they for you,” Irial said.
“There has been enough killing today.” Far Dorcha’s words drew all of their gazes to him. In the midst of the bruised and wearied faeries, Death alone seemed untouched. He folded his arms over his chest and looked at them.
“In all of forever, this has not happened. She”—the Dark Man paused and motioned toward the warehouse—“was one of the first of two. Said to be unkillable without damning us all. There must be balance.” The Dark Man’s gaze flickered to Aislinn. “You have first right.”
Aislinn’s hand tightened on Seth’s. “No.”
“And you?” Far Dorcha’s attention turned to Seth. “Would you fill the vacant role of Discord? By right of your mother’s heritage, you are entitled to fill this. Your Sight is already in place; you travel between the worlds. You walk in the four courts and as a solitary. Unless you are planning to keep your new role . . .”
Seth glanced at Niall. “I don’t suppose the consequences of not being who I am would be good.”
Far Dorcha shrugged, but made no comment.
“I’ll pass.” Seth might not be able to see his own future, but he saw—and suspected that Far Dorcha saw—the increasingly probable futures of several of the faeries around him. Irial and Niall still had choices to make. Seth was all but certain what those choices were, but the decisions still must be made manifest.
There are always choices.
Far Dorcha continued as if nothing was certain. “Niall? Your sword ended her.”
“No. I am the Dark King.” Niall stared at Irial as he spoke. “I didn’t fight for my throne, bleed for the court, only to step away.” Then, with visible effort, Niall pulled his gaze from Irial and asked Far Dorcha, “The role must be filled, right?”
Far Dorcha sighed. “It must, and as much as it pains me to offer it to the one who avoided dying . . . Irial?”
The shade of the dead king did not even glance at Death—or at anyone there. As if no one else stood with them, he asked Niall, “Are you sure? I could stay. . . .”
“Dead?” Niall snorted. “An eternity of you in my head isn’t exactly ideal for either of us.”
At that, Irial glanced at Far Dorcha. “Are there other options?”
“You can remain as you are now, unconnected to the live king; you can resume your possession of him; or you can assume the vacant role.” Far Dorcha scowled at Irial. “If you are not this, I need to find another to fill it. There will be balance. Discord is—”
“Right.” Irial waved his hand as if brushing words away. “If I am unconnected, will they see me?”
“Not unless I am near or they are dead too,” Far Dorcha said.
“So possession, absence, or War.” Irial turned his back on all of them again. “Niall? I can stay, help mind the court, advise you; being tied to you means that our dreams are real.”
“I don’t want you to be a shade,” Niall said. “War belongs in the Dark Court, and . . . This is what I want.”
“Not War,” Far Dorcha corrected. “She was Discord—just as her twin is Order. Bananach forgot what she was. The aim of Discord is not solely one of violence. To do your work, you will be able to walk through the veil to Faerie as well. I will remedy that problem: the veil will be open to you . . . if you are Discord.”
“Discord.” Irial flashed a wry smile at all of them. “I’m sure I can stir up some discontent.”
The Dark Man snorted, but said nothing.
As they all stood there, Irial grew serious. He reached out with an insubstantial hand that hovered over the Dark King’s forearm. “You can’t trust me after this. Not the same way you do now.”
“I don’t tr—” The words Niall attempted to say became unpronounceable. “I don’t want you dead, Iri. I can find a new advisor. . . . Tell him yes, so we can get to work setting things in order.”
“Discord doesn’t generally work at putting things in order.” Irial’s smile returned.
Far Dorcha shook his head. “No one else has ever tricked Death, so I
suppose it’s fitting that you fill the unkillable role.”
“I never have been much for rules.” Irial’s insubstantial form became solid as they watched. “You have to admit that it was a good loophole.”
The incredulous look Far Dorcha gave him made quite clear that he wasn’t going to admit anything, but as the Dark Man turned his back to Irial and Niall, he winked at Seth.
As Seth watched, threads became steady and stretched into the future.
Death was smiling as he walked toward Ankou; Niall’s tension seemed to vanish as Irial murmured something too softly for anyone else to hear.
Then Aislinn leaned her head on Seth’s arm. “Let’s get out of here?”
He had unresolved business with Niall, but given the option of dealing with Niall or being with Aislinn . . . there was no choice. He tightened his arms around her, but before they took two steps, the Summer Court’s advisor cleared his throat.
“If I could borrow you for a moment, my Queen?” Tavish said as he joined them. “I will handle what’s here, but I need you to make a few decisions before you depart.”
The Summer Queen looked at Seth. “Give me a sec?”
He nodded.
Tavish led Aislinn a few steps away, and Seth was left standing with Niall and Irial.
With a smile, Irial turned to Niall. “Far Dorcha deserves just a little more discord in his life. See you inside?”
After a grateful look at Irial’s departing figure, Niall turned to face Seth. They stood in silence for only as long as it took to assure that no one overheard them.
“I was angry,” Niall said.
Seth folded his arms.
The Dark King rubbed a hand over his face. “If Ash had been killed, you would’ve been unwell too.”
“That’s a reason, not an excuse.” Seth gestured at the burn on the side of his face. “You were going to burn my eye, man. That’s so far from forgivable.”
“I didn’t.”
“Because Leslie stopped you.” Seth stepped closer. “You considered letting Far Dorcha kill me.”
“I didn’t offer you to him,” Niall said.
