The Castle of Fire and Fable

by Steffanie Holmes

  Arrows whizzed on both sides of us, thudding as they buried their heads into tree trunks. Angry voices rose as they came after us. Shite.

  I was no dream-walking expert, but judging by the sting in my cheek I felt pretty sure that if one of those arrows pierced my chest, I’d carry the wound back into the human realm with me.

  Liah’s head sank below my view as the forest fell down a steep ridge. I scrambled down as quickly as I could, just in time to see Liah parting a curtain of vines to reveal a small burrow beneath the roots of an ancient oak.

  I raced toward her. Skittering feet pounded all around me, the sound of wet flesh slithering over rough bark. Bwbacks. I looked up, cursing under my breath as their slimy forms dropped from the trees above and raced toward us.

  They’d been there all along, watching Liah’s hideout, waiting for their opportunity to strike.

  “Liah!” I cried, leaping over the roots and racing toward the burrow, just as her head disappeared inside. The tiny Bwbacks snapped at my ankles. Another arrow flew directly in front of my face. Never was I happier that Daigh’s princes weren’t the greatest shots.

  I reached into the barrow and grabbed Liah’s arm, yanking her out of the hole. She glowered at me. “Let go. I’ve placed a glamour here. They can’t see or sense me.”

  “Look!” I pointed, and she finally saw them. Liah gasped as Bwbacks hurtled their tiny slithering bodies toward her, teeth bared, ready to chew away her flesh. An arrow embedded itself in the tree behind us. And I knew what I had to do.

  I’d done this once before for Maeve, but never for myself. But both our lives were at stake. I had to try. I reached into my head and pulled out all my cruelest memories, all the things that haunted me in the darkest night. Daigh looming over me, forcing me to tear the wings from tiny sprites that shrieked and trembled in terror, explaining to me that their screams were the trigger to harnessing Unseelie magic. Daigh’s face twisted with rage and pain as he scrawled image after image of Maeve’s mother’s face into the walls of his sidhe. Bone blades slicing my skin as the other princes tormented me, their pet human. The gnawing emptiness of my stomach, deprived of food for days at a time until I was forced to eat the poison fae cakes or beg Daigh to bring something edible back from the human realm – an apple core, perhaps, or some half-chewed sweets children had spat out on the pavement.

  Twenty-one years of torture, pain, and cruelty. Enough fodder to fill all the nightmares of all the children of the world. But I only needed one.

  I fell into the memories, becoming one with them, feeling the knives enter my skin as the other Princes surrounded me, chanting their insults as they enchanted my wounds to heal so they could stab me again. Each strike with their blades felt like a punch, hard and fast, my body tossed about by the force of their blows.

  The pain and humiliation burned hot in my veins, until I could sense my grip on the fae realm receding. From inside my memories, I thrust out a hand to Liah. “Hold on to me!” I yelled.

  “What’s the point?” she yelled back. The Bwbacks fell upon her, their tiny bodies slithering up her legs, pinning her to the earth. An Unseelie soldier wrestled her arms behind her head. She yelled as he snapped her right arm like a twig.

  “Just do it!”

  Liah tore her other arm free of the fae and reached out to me. Her fingers brushed mine.

  Inky darkness crept from the corners of my eyes, enveloping me. I grabbed for Liah, reaching through my nightmare to grip her fingers in mine. I pulled, dragging her into the darkness—

  I woke up with a start. Sweat drenched my face. My body ached from the slices of the fae blades. It took a few moments for the inky darkness to dissolve and reveal the shelves of books in the Briarwood library and Maeve’s face looming large and frightened in front of me.

  “Blake, what’s wrong?” Maeve stood over me, her pretty eyes wide with fear. “You were thrashing about and crying. And there’s blood—”

  “Liah?” I bolted upright, my eyes darting around. I’d grabbed her just before I’d been pulled back. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here?

  I glanced down at my hand, still feeling my fingers gripping hers. I screamed as I saw what I clutched in my fingers.

  A pretty hand, cut off just above the wrist in a bloody stump.

  20

  BLAKE

  “Fuck!” I threw Liah’s hand across the room. It slammed against a bookshelf and slid down to the floor, leaving a trail of green fae blood along the gilded spines of Corbin’s beloved magic books.

  “What the hell is that?” Maeve moved to look at it.

  I grabbed her hand. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”

  Flynn, however, I wasn’t going to save. He bent down and picked up Liah’s hand, then shrieked as he dropped it again. “It’s a fecking hand!”

  “Yes, it’s a fecking hand.” I cursed my stupidity. I’d tried to save Liah and all I’d done was maim her horribly and left her in the hands of the fae. In the pain of the nightmare, I’d completely forgotten about the wards around the castle. They’d repelled Liah when I tried to pull her in, slicing off her hand when the dream closed around me.

  Without her hand, Liah couldn’t draw her bow. If she was even still alive, she was going to curse me so fucking bad.

  “Whose hand is it?” Maeve asked, touching my wrists as if to reassure herself I still had both of mine. The touch made my chest ache for no reason. “Blake, what happened?”

  My heart sank. I folded my arms. “What happened is that I met someone I could trust and she gave me valuable information and then I accidentally ripped her hand off. But at least I know what your father dearest is planning to do. He’s making a blood sacrifice to the unhallowed ones in order to raise the Slaugh.”

  Flynn’s face paled, but Maeve squeezed my wrist. “What is this Slaugh? Corbin mentioned it once but I thought it was a legend.”

  “The fairy host. The Slaugh are the resurrected spirits of the recently departed, twisted and corrupted by fae magic. They ride over the countryside on skeletal horses, a black storm of chaos and hatred, devouring everything in their path. The last time the Slaugh rode on earth was the Black Death. And now…” I stared at Liah’s limp hand lying on the carpet, and a shudder ran through my body. “Now they’re coming to us.”

  21

  MAEVE

  “Every delicious mouthful of this has been worth the wait,” Blake gushed between bites, as he cradled his first ever plate of curry in his hands. He seemed to have recovered somewhat from the shock of severing his friend’s hand earlier.

  The coffee table in the library contained stacks of unopened takeout containers. None of the rest of us really felt like eating, especially not after Corbin and Rowan had returned about an hour ago, just in time to see the grisly evidence of Blake’s dream-walk lying on the library floor. Corbin still wouldn’t say where he’d been – and Rowan shook his head sadly when I tried to ask him – but both of them had a hunch in their shoulders and a haunted look in their eyes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t give them the good news they so desperately needed.

  “Found it.” Corbin laid one of the Briarwood grimoires flat on the desk, holding down the edges with book weights. Unlike the volume Flynn took to the ritual, this one didn’t have an arrow hole through the parchment to mar the horror between the pages.

  The particular page we were looking at was entirely filled with an illustration. In the bottom left corner villagers cowered in terror inside their homes. From the top right, a dark swirl of black cloud, skeletal limbs, and cloaked figures whirling swords, maces, and daggers descended upon them. As they flew down, they razed the village church, the fields of wheat, the tiny houses in their neat little rows. Spirits with haunted faces rose from their graves to join the host, swelling their ranks.

  In their wake, they left mounds of dead, disemboweled, dismembered bodies. The once-living, mutilated by their own beloved dead. A date in the bottom corner read 1351. The final year of the Black Death.
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br />   “Shite.” Not even Flynn had something smart to say. All eight of us crowded around the table, staring in horror at what might be our future. The only other person to make a sound was Connor, who gurgled happily as he teethed on a silicone ring.

  “How do we stop this?” I breathed.

  Corbin slumped against the desk. “I don’t know that we can.”

  I tore my gaze from the book to look at Corbin. There was something in his eyes I’d never seen before. Defeat.

  “There’s got to be a way.”

  “Nothing in this library will tell us how to stop the Slaugh,” Corbin explained. “According to this, they were only contained again because they gorged themselves so fully on the blood and souls of the dead that they became stupefied, and beasts of hell managed to tear them from the earth and drag them into their fiery depths. By then sixty percent of Europe’s entire population were dead. We can’t really afford to wait for the ‘beasts of hell’ to sort their shit out.”

  That number was so enormous, it had practically no meaning. I tried to ignore all the words that gave me empirical problems, like souls and fiery depths and beasts of hell. I could deal with my skepticism later. “So how do we stop them before they get to the raising the souls of the dead stage? Isn’t that what this coven did twenty-one years ago, stopped the fae before they could begin the Slaugh?”

  “There’s not a witch alive who can tell us what happened before or how they managed to do that,” Corbin said bitterly. “And it’s not written in these books anywhere. We’re on our own.”

  This defeated Corbin really got me down. “We’ve got to have something going for us,” I prompted. “We’re a full coven now with two spirit witches.”

  “As long as neither of you gets yourself killed. Thanks to Blake’s dangerous stunt,” Corbin glared in Blake’s direction, “we know Daigh needs the blood of the innocent in order to get this party started. And he can only take unbaptized babies into the fae realm, where presumably this sacrifice will have to take place. At least we know now why he took the babies. As soon as he’s able to, he’ll come back through the gate and take more.” He looked at Jane as though seeing her for the first time. “Did you get Connor baptized yet?”

  “It’s in two days’ time,” Jane said, hugging Connor to her chest, her eyes blazing. Corbin frowned.

  “The gateway should hold until then,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter. If he doesn’t get Connor, he’ll get others.”

  “I’ve already found the mother of the other kidnapped child,” Jane said. “I called her mother-in-law and gave this whole spiel about how I was the daughter’s friend and I was worried about the immortal soul of her child. The mother-in-law bought every stupid word. That child will be baptized before the week is out.”

  “If Daigh can move freely on earth, he’ll take children from anywhere. We can’t get to every unbaptized baby on earth. And if what Blake said was right and he’s wielding the power of all the fae, he—”

  “Liah can help,” Blake said, using the last bit of naan bread to scoop up the chicken masala curry. Accidentally amputating his friend’s hand didn’t seem to have affected his appetite.

  “What?” Corbin’s eyes narrowed.

  “Liah. She’s a Seelie fae. I met her in the dream. She’s the one who told me what Daigh was planning to do.”

  “She’s the one whose hand is currently sitting in a pickling jar in the kitchen,” Flynn piped up. Rowan’s face paled.

  “Wait a second.” In a moment, the old, take-charge Corbin was back. He fixed Blake with a stare that would’ve made a less self-assured guy burrow into the floor. “You didn’t see evidence of this yourself? We’re basing our entire plan off something a fae told you? A fae whose name is Liah?”

  Blake licked butter chicken sauce off his fingers. “Liah and I are old friends, if one can even have friends in the fae realm. I trust her.”

  “That means a lot, coming from you.” Arthur smirked.

  “Whether you trust her or not, it’s not enough,” Corbin said.

  “She’s leading a rebellion of the Seelie fae.”

  “Even if that’s true, and if she’s still alive, we don’t know who might have got to her in there. She might have been compelled to tell you this, in order to lead us off in this direction. We can’t risk what little we know getting back to Daigh.”

  “Once again,” Blake lazily flicked a piece of lint off his shoulder. “I’d like to point out that you are not the one making the decisions. Maeve is.”

  Damn. I was hoping they’d forgotten about that.

  Corbin whirled his head around and fixed me with that intense stare. “Fine. Maeve, what’s your decision?”

  Seven pairs of eyes swirled toward me, all showing various emotions, from amusement (Flynn) and trepidation (Rowan), to anger (Corbin) and fascination (Connor).

  “Um…” I threw up my hands. This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to make decisions like this when literally the fate of the entire damn world is relying on me to get it right? “Well, I’m in need of my trusty advisors.” I turned to Corbin. “If we don’t go back to this Liah person, what would you do?”

  Corbin sighed. “I’d continue as though we were dealing with the Slaugh and focus our attention on finding a way to block their entrance to our world permanently.”

  I nodded. That was really sensible. Of course it was, Corbin thought of it. He really was a good leader. “Okay, I agree. Let’s do that, then.”

  “What about Liah?” Blake’s eyes bore into mine. He wore his usual casual expression, spoke in his smirking tone, but something in his eyes told me he might actually have cared about this fae.

  “Going back to the fae realm is too risky, Blake. I’m sorry.”

  One by one, the guys left, each one meeting my eyes. A hundred unspoken things passed between us. Corbin remained seated at his desk, looking as though he couldn’t force his body to move. Part of me wanted to leave him alone to what were clearly some disturbed thoughts, but the other part of me could see how badly he needed to cast off some of that weight he was carrying around.

  I walked to the heavy wooden door and pushed it shut. There was no lock on the door. I guessed libraries weren’t designed for clandestine affairs.

  “Corbin.” I leaned against the back of the door and fixed him with what I hoped was a withering gaze. “You look like shit. No, pardon me, you look like shite.”

  He looked up at me and something fierce passed through his dark eyes. Was it anger, or fear, or desire? I was too far away to tell.

  Emboldened by his silence, I stepped forward, moving to the front of the desk and placing my hands on the open grimoire. A different volume from the one we’d first shagged on, but it brought all the memories back.

  Damn, I’m getting really good at these British sayings. I’m starting to think in terms of shagging and wankers and gobshites.

  “Corbin, listen to me. You aren’t sleeping. You’re snapping at people. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  He shook his head. “Please don’t worry about me. I’ve just had a long day is all. I’m tired and—”

  “That’s bollocks and we both know it. Maybe you were on your own before and you had to look after yourself. But you’re not on your own now. Arthur and Rowan and Flynn and I and yes, even Blake… we’re stronger when we work together. You don’t have to carry this burden all on your own.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said, his voice flat. Corbin had argued the same point before, with Rowan no doubt.

  However, Rowan would give up as soon as Corbin gave him that don’t fuck with me stare. I was not Rowan and I knew just how to get our fearless protector to talk.

  “You’re right,” I folded my arms across the front of my dress. “I don’t understand. But I’m going to. I need more, Corbin. I am your high priestess, and your landlord, as well as your friend. Remember when I first came here and you didn’t tell me everything about who I was and because of that, I en
ded up in a dangerous situation? You thought that was the right decision, but you were wrong. Do you hear me? You were wrong.”

  The words shuddered against Corbin’s body like blows. He deflated in the chair, his eyes dropping to his hands.

  I pressed my advantage. “I am not having any secrets in my castle. You can start by telling me where you went today. And if you say you were visiting some archaic wizard library, I’ll know you’re lying. You’d never go to a library and not come home with a huge stack of books.”

  “I wennoo seema errants,” Corbin mumbled.

  “A bit louder. I can’t quite hear you.”

  “I went to see my parents!” Corbin yelled, snapping his head up. “I asked them to take their heads out of their bloody arses and help us, but they’re too bloody afraid to do it!”

  As soon as the words flew out of his mouth, Corbin’s eyes widened. “Maeve, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

  “It’s fine.” I leaned over the desk, placed my hand on top of his. He stared at my hand as though it were an alien thing. “Can you elaborate a little? Your parents were both in the last Briarwood coven. They both survived, and they lived here in the castle until five years ago, and then it was just you. Does that have something to do with it?”

  “My parents were the only witches left after the battle who were still willing or able to use their powers. They stayed here at Briarwood to watch over the gateway and make sure the fae couldn’t try anything again. We all grew up here – my brother and twin sisters – playing in the garden, baking cakes in the big kitchen, creating make-believe spy games with the secret staircase and the other hidden places. I spent every evening curled up in this library, reading books to my brother Keegan.”

  “It must’ve been amazing.” To grow up in a house like this, surrounded by siblings and love and books and magic. This could have been my life, my family, my siblings, if Daigh hadn’t taken it all away from me.