As the Crow Flies (Book 19 in the Godhunter Series)

by Sumida,Amy

  I snapped a quick picture of Trevor and Brevyn, then tucked the camera back into my purse. Despite my fear of being overrun by purse pursuers, I decided to keep my bag with me this time. Just in case there were more photo opportunities. You never know when a baby is going to do something cute. Or when your nemesis may be paraded in chains before you. Plus, my dress was ruined anyway, damp and very dirty. I was betting that the perfect faeries would be too horrified by my clothing to notice my accessory.

  Once our whole party was assembled in the entrance hall, we were led to the throne room. The queens were dragged before us like prisoners of war at the head of a victory parade. I had been wrong about the cells. The High King wanted to confront the women before imprisoning them. As we walked, faeries came out of side rooms to stop and stare at the spectacle of two faerie queens being drug through the halls like common criminals... one of whom was supposed to be dead, and who was also currently naked. I know, bad form on our parts. We should have at least given Dubheasa a cloak, but I wasn't feeling particularly generous at the time.

  We reached the throne room, and found Cian and Meara on their thrones, as I'd expected. What I hadn't expected, was a third throne on the dais, set a little back and to the side of Cian's. It was a masculine throne, like Cian's was, but a bit smaller. It appeared to have grown out of the dais, just as the other thrones had, and in it sat Lugh. His eyes lit up when he spotted Cernunnos.

  “I'm sorry, Father,” Lugh said as he stood. “I know this may be inappropriate, but I need to greet my friend.”

  “Son, there is very little that is inappropriate for a High Prince,” Cian laughed. “Go ahead. Our tragedy can wait a moment while we partake in a bit of joy.” Then he turned toward Cernunnos and the green men. “Welcome to Faerie, Horned God and Green Men. It has been a long time since we've seen your gentle faces. It warms our heart to gaze upon them again.”

  “Thank you, High King,” Cernunnos bowed, and the green men bowed along with him. Then he straightened quickly to hug Lugh. “I am relieved to find you here, where you were always meant to be, Lugh. And the timing could not have been better.”

  “What do you mean?” Lugh pulled back from Cernunnos, and nodded to the green men absently. They bowed to him respectfully.

  “Tara is under attack, even as we speak,” Cernunnos said sadly. “I'm afraid the Tuatha have brought war upon themselves.”

  “We're saddened to hear so,” Cian spoke since Lugh looked as if he couldn't. “And it seems you have joined us on a most grim occasion as well, Cernunnos. We have traitors to deal with today, a rare occurrence indeed. I'm sorry that you must witness their trial, so soon upon your arrival.”

  “I am happy to be in Faerie under any circumstances,” Cernunnos said diplomatically, and eased to the side with his green guys.

  Lugh looked as if he would join the Horned God, but Cian gestured him back to his throne. Lugh nodded, and regally climbed the dais stairs to sit with his father. The queens were brought forth, both staring rebelliously, and a little haughtily at the High King. That wouldn't have been my approach at all.

  Still, even with her staring daggers at him, Cian showed kindness to Dubheasa. He gestured to one of Queen Meara's ladies in waiting. “If you please, Lady Muirenn, could you lend us your cloak?”

  The lovely, violet haired sidhe gave a deep bow to the High King, and undid her cloak. She would have taken it to Dubheasa herself, but one of the knights stepped forward to receive it, with an air that clearly said he had no wish for the lady to sully herself by interacting with the traitor. The knight handed the cloak to Dubheasa with a little more force than was necessary. Still, Dubheasa took it with a lifted chin, and swung it around herself slowly, like she wasn't at all embarrassed to be standing before the High Court nude.

  “Stop!” a man's cry echoed through the crowd, and from the back of the room there was a commotion. A wave of faeries eased aside for King Cahal, Aalish's husband.

  He came striding to the base of the thrones, the vines which sprouted from his dark green skin flailing anxiously about him. His hair, the same shade of the vines, was wild, and his yellow eyes were feverish. He had a contingent (ha, that's the word) of knights at his back. The earth knights looked worried, their eyes scanning the crowd like soldiers surveying their enemy across a battlefield. If their king commanded it, they'd fight... and they would die. They were massively outnumbered.

  “Cahal!” Aalish cried in relief. “Help me.”

  “Aalish,” Cahal spared a moment to kiss his wife and glare at the knights holding her so roughly. “This is a faerie queen you are manhandling, show some respect!”

  The knights looked at each other, and then lifted their chins, continuing to hold Aalish firm as they stared the Earth King down.

  “King Cahal,” Cian sighed. “Please step away from your wife. I understand this is-”

  “You understand?” Cahal huffed. “Is it your wife standing here, held like an enemy?”

  “Enough!” Cian stood and glared at Cahal. “Do not feign ignorance of your wife's nature with me, Cahal!” The room gasped at the dropping of Cahal's title. “You are nearly as complicit in this as she is. Aalish has been warned, and given numerous chances to change her malicious intentions towards Queen Vervain. Still, she has only grown more sinister.” Cian paused and pulled himself up even taller, prouder, “We are the Fey. The Shining Ones. The Fair Folk. And although we can be as vicious as we are beautiful, we never turn that violence against our own royals!”

  “High King,” Cahal started in shock.

  “Step back!” Cian roared, and the spirit knights around the base of the throne came to attention, pointing their spears at Cahal with an impressive stomp of metal clad legs and unity in motion.

  Cahal stepped back.

  “Cahal?” Aalish whimpered.

  “You are not above our laws, Aalish,” King Cian strode down the wood steps, and held a hand up. The knights lifted their spears immediately, the motion just as perfect as their previous. Then the High King faced Aalish, “And you are no longer a queen.” Another astounded gasp circled the room. “Where is the ring.”

  “What ring?” Aalish widened her eyes.

  “The Ring of Remembrance which you no doubt used to bring Dubheasa back. You have more than one in your possession, I'd wager. One belongs to your husband, and I believe the other belongs to King Fionn.”

  “You took it when you came for a visit last month, didn't you, Aalish?” Queen Breana of Air snarled from the sidelines, her massive monarch butterfly wings twitching with anger. “I thought you were behaving oddly, but it never occurred to me that you'd stoop to thievery.”

  Breana's husband held her hand supportively, his own wings flung aggressively wide. I looked around the room for the first time, and was shocked to see all of the royals in attendance. Even the new rulers of Darkness were there, King Rowan and Queen Liatris, holding their twin babies tight as they watched with fascinated expressions. Faerie must have sent out a mass text, er... telepathic call.

  “I was going to return it,” Aalish snapped. “I just needed two rings to bring back Queen Dubveasa. One to take me to her, and one for her to use to return with me. You all know she was unfairly sentenced to death, without so much as a trial, and by the Fire Queen,” Aalish glared at me, “not the High King as is proper.”

  “Well I am here now to pronounce my sentence over you,” Cian said in a dangerous voice which rang through the room. “The attempted murder of a queen of Faerie is enough to warrant death, yet you were shown mercy once, Aalish. You shall receive none today.”

  King Cahal keened, and dropped to his knees, covering his face with his hands.

  “High King,” Arach stepped forward. “If I may?”

  “Of course, King Arach,” Cian nodded.

  “I claim Aalish and Dubheasa as prey for the Wild Hunt,” Arach said in a deadly calm voice.

  The faeries murmured and shuffled anxiously. Cahal's cries turned even bleaker. Cian st
ared hard at Arach.

  “They are both traitors, High King,” Arach offered. “I am within my rights as King of the Wild Hunt to claim them.”

  “Dubheasa of Water and Aalish of Earth,” King Cian declared with a nod to Arach, “you are sentenced to death by Wild Hunt. May Faerie forgive you both, for her children will not.”

  Cian nodded to his knights, and they pulled the women away, Aalish screaming and Dubheasa silent and shivering. It was a sobering sight, and oddly enough, I didn't relish it. I felt no satisfaction watching the women being dragged away. There was no excitement in my belly when I thought of the hunt to come. I didn't even reach for my camera. All I felt, was a cold sorrow and a wretched relief.

  It was over. My family and I were safe.

  King Cahal quieted and calmly got to his feet. He strode straight over to Arach. I tensed beside my husband, and clutched Rian tighter to my chest. The spirit knights eased forward as the earth knights loyally took up position at Cahal's back. But the Earth King didn't try to attack us. As soon as he was close enough, Cahal snatched Arach's dagger from its sheath; a special blade imbued with the energy of fire, capable of killing any faerie except for one born of Fire. In a swift movement, too fast for Arach to stop, Cahal sank the dagger into his own heart. He fell to his knees before us.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered as his eyes met mine. “Love has made a traitor of me.”

  The throne room erupted into chaos.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “What will happen to the Earth Kingdom?” I asked Arach as we headed home.

  Trevor was back in his human form, wearing a pair of breeches donated to him by one of the spirit knights. Isleen had the babies in their baskets, one to either side of her, with Dexter curled across her feet. Dex was staring at me like I might be snatched from the carriage at any second, and he was prepared to latch onto an ankle this time. You didn't fool my Dexter twice.

  We were in one of the whole carriages. As in: not torn open by my hasty removal. Cernunnos and his green men had stayed behind at High Court to visit with Lugh and Cian, so we had extra carriages to spare. Though one of them now held two ex-faerie queens and several spirit knights.

  Cian had decided not to postpone executing the women. The horror of King Cahal's suicide could not be outdone, and the High King decided it would be best to have a full plate of tragedy instead of saving room for dessert. The suicide had really shaken the Fey, even more so than the traitorous queens and the verdict of their executions. Faeries simply did not kill themselves. Squandering the gift of immortality was shocking beyond belief to them. I think High King Cian wanted to direct attention away from that abomination as soon as possible. So we were heading home, where I would use my ring to jump back to the God Realm, and invite my other husbands and Re to a barbecue. Of sorts.

  Honestly, I wasn't sure if I wanted my other men there. Arach, as a dragon, understood and even encouraged my savage behavior when I was in dragon form. When I was in any form, if truth be told. Arach could accept that my dragon hungered for some faerie flesh. Not only that, he'd feast with me. Trevor, on the other hand, may have joked about making Dubheasa into sushi, but he didn't actually intend to eat her. And he was a werewolf. What would my other, non-shifter lovers think about me consuming flesh?

  I know, gross. Please don't judge me. I'll be having plenty of that soon enough. Eating meat was simply the nature of my beast, and she considered people to be meat. I had accepted that when I accepted her. Trevor accepted that I was a dragon, but he did not accept the whole eating people thing. He had previously voiced his horror at the possibility of it. It was all too cannibalistic for him, even if I weren't human at the time. Froekn didn't eat human flesh, no matter what the myths say, and so he couldn't support my decision to do so. To him, the base instincts of the beast could be controlled by the man. He couldn't understand why I'd give my dragon free rein.

  But it wasn't as easy to control a dragon, as it was to control a wolf. I didn't want to insult Trevor by saying so. However, I knew it to be true. I had both of them inside me, and the dragon was far stronger than my wolf. Of course, that could be due to the fact that I was born a dragon-sidhe, and only made a wolf later. Yet, I didn't think so. The needs of my dragon could be difficult to ignore under normal circumstances. Faced with an enemy who had tried to hurt our children, her need to vanquish and feast was even now threatening to overpower me. In dragon form, it would be all consuming. I wouldn't have the slightest chance of controlling her. Not to mention the fact that my other two animals would be demanding blood as well. I would have to deny three beasts, not one. And we all know how violent my inner animals could get when they didn't get what they wanted.

  I, Vervain the person, didn't want to eat anyone. The mere thought made me queasy, and brought up images from that Denzel film where people were eating other people, and going crazy from that Kuru disease. You could tell the cannibals by their shaking hands. People are not meant to eat people. It's bad form. Still, I wasn't just a person anymore, and we all had to make allowances for our body's special needs. Be they a multivitamin or a bite of faerie flesh. I don't eat flesh often, but when I do, it's faerie. Ugh, I apologize, that was my nerves talking. What it comes down to is this: I could justify myself all day long, and then argue every justification right back. But in the end, it didn't matter. As soon as Cian had sentenced the women to death by Wild Hunt, the feast had been fated. My dragon would dine on their flesh and bones and blood. And she'd delight in it all.

  My stomach turned. Was that a tremor in my hand?

  “Minn Elska?” Trevor cocked his head at me in concern, pulling me out of my cannibalistic musings.

  “I don't want you there,” I whispered to him.

  “Where?” he narrowed his eyes, and then they widened. “The Hunt? You don't want me to have my vengeance?”

  “No,” Arach answered him as he stared grimly at me, “she doesn't want you to see her have her vengeance. We dragons can be... brutal.”

  “Oh,” Trevor's shoulders dropped as my true apprehension became clear to him. “I understand, but I will attend this hunt, Minn Elska. I promise I won't hold your actions against you.”

  “That's not what worries me,” I sighed. “I don't want you to look at me differently when it's all over.”

  “I won't.”

  “I think you might,” I shook my head.

  “Then I will consume her flesh with you,” he announced, and we all gaped at him. “I will step over that boundary for you, Minn Elska.”

  We all gaped at him, even Dexter lifted his head, and stared slack jawed at the Werewolf Prince.

  “No you will not,” I declared firmly. “It's hard enough for me. I won't have you go through it as well.”

  “Then I will lick their blood from your lips,” he whispered as his hand went to mine. “We will drink in their deaths together, and I will carve the best morsels of meat for you,” he said the words like he was spouting love poetry, and damn if my dragon didn't think they were.

  “Hmph,” Arach chuckled. “I think I'm growing to like you, wolf.”

  Trevor shot a smirk across me at Arach.

  “That's really disgusting, Honey-Eyes,” I smiled to ease the sting. “And yet, very romantic. Thank you.”

  “I love you, Vervain,” he squeezed my hand. “Every part of you. Even when you shock me or upset me, I still love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “And I love her too,” Arach had to add, his hand going to my thigh.

  Dexter made a gruff sound of agreement.

  Arach kissed my cheek, and smiled wickedly at Trevor, “The behavior you find shocking, I find thrilling.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Trevor rolled his eyes, and then settled them back on me. “I even love you despite your love for him.”

  “That's the most difficult bit, is it?” I giggled as Arach murmured something about needing a wolf pelt for his office floor.

  “A hunt,” Isleen whispered from he
r seat, across the carriage from us. Her eyes had gone wistful and dreamy. “Death riding through the night on dragon wings. Blood scenting the breeze. The Hidden Ones in all their splendor, and the screams of our enemies. How I count the hours to sunset.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  My husbands and boyfriend agreed to join the hunt. Even Azrael, whose instant affirmative shocked the hell out of me. Don't get me wrong, Azrael is the baddest of the bad. But he was also an angel, with an angel's compassion, and getting him to switch that aspect off could be difficult.

  I gave them a time to head over, one that should bring them current with Faerie time, as well as give us in Faerie, the opportunity to send the coach out to meet them. Then I returned to Faerie. The time difference would give them a chance to prepare for the hunt; get all dolled up in the warrior wear, and gather their shiny weapons. So it worked out perfect.

  I had sent the coach out to meet them as soon as I returned to the time I'd left, and that was hours ago. So they should be arriving at any time. We had a good half an hour before sunset, plenty of opportunity for them to get here for the main event. The Wild Hunt was best done at night. Aesthetics and all. Plus, it made it more of a challenge, and with our prey already magically hobbled, a little challenge would keep the hunt exciting.

  Faerie hadn't spoken to me yet, and I didn't try to reach out to her. I knew this would weigh heavy on her. Especially after Cahal's suicide. She hated losing any of her children, even the evil ones. So she'd stay out of this hunt, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if she stopped talking to me for awhile. Thank goodness for small miracles. Or in this case, I suppose it would be, thank badness for small miracles.

  The twins would, of course, remain behind in the care of their nurses. Isleen had requested to join the Hunt. So she wouldn't be among those watching over the babies. I felt a little bad for their nurses, who had to watch the hunt from the nursery window instead of experience it down here, with the rest of us, but I didn't want my sons to be a part of this. Arach had made a halfhearted attempt to argue in favor of the boys at least attending our send off, but when I pointed out that they would be frightened by the screaming (which was sure to happen), Arach relented. The royal nannies were fine with the arrangement though, happy to watch from the window with the babies, where they had a lovely view. They'd come down as soon as the Wild Hunt began, and join the party below.