“You were trying to save your brother,” she sniffed. “I understand that now. And you were trying to save me.”
“Was I? Or was I trying to save myself?”
“I think the fact that I don’t currently have an arrow through my heart because of you answers your question.” Aisling grinned. “I love you, Niall. I don’t like being deceived, but I forgive you for it. Just don’t ever do it again.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Niall beamed. Despite the gravity of their situation, his heart had never felt lighter. With Aisling’s love to guide him, he would see the world in a different way. If he lived long enough to undo all the damage he’d done.
“As much as I’d love to lie here with you all day …” Niall gestured to the arrow sticking out of the staircase. Aisling nodded. Niall sat back, and helped her to her feet.
“H-h-how did that arrow break the glass?” she asked, her fingers reaching for the arrow. It looked different from Niall’s arrows. The surface shimmered with tendrils of blue smoke. “Nothing should be able to get in here.”
Niall slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch that.”
He held his bracelet up to the tip of the arrow, watching the tiny dial on the side spring about madly. “It’s been charged with atern,” he replied. “This arrow is powerful enough to penetrate the shield that protects the house, especially now that it’s weakened.”
“How is it weakened?”
“The house has been giving you the power, so it doesn’t have as much as it once did. But even if it had its full power, it couldn’t stop that arrow. Laneth knows now how to charge objects with magic, and he has so much to spare, he will be able to create a whole army.”
“Shit,” Aisling said.
“Shit is right.” Niall slumped to the floor, burying his face in his hands. “I did this. I doomed us both.”
“I’ve been doomed for years,” Aisling said. “It’s not a new realization to me. You were right, Niall. This is no kind of life. I’ve been living like a ghost between these walls. It wasn’t until you came along and showed me joy, that I even felt like there was worth in my life to fight for. So, stop with the self-deprecating bullshit, and give me a bit of that fae bossiness. What are we going to do?”
“I know exactly what we’re going to do.” Niall balled his hands into fists and glared at the hole in the glass. “We’re going to fight.”
23
Aisling
Niall laid a small bouquet of flowers against the door, arranging the blooms so they fanned out in a beautiful design. Aisling stood behind him, watching the concentration on his face as he tended the bouquet.
“Rest well, my friend,” he said, stepping back. He placed his hand over his heart, his eyes gazing up at the ceiling. He muttered a few words under his breath in a language she’d never heard before.
Aisling laid her hand on his shoulder, the hard muscles shuddering under her touch. Niall – her tough, beautiful fae – was crying. The sobs tore at his body, raw and harsh. After his earlier declaration of his intention to fight the fae, to protect the house, the grief had stripped him of all his resolve. He said he needed this, needed to give Odiana something to mark her death. As much as she wanted to comfort him, she needed Niall the warrior more.
All the fight had flown from her as soon as she’d seen that poor fae slump against the porch, the arrow sticking out of her chest. Aisling still hadn’t forgiven Niall. She didn’t know if she ever could. But she accepted that her anger, her hatred of him grew out of her love. If she didn’t care for him, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt her. He may have doomed them both, but in the few short weeks since he’d come to the Hollow, she’d lived more than she had in the last fifteen years. All things considered, the balance sheet was in his favor.
“When will they attack?” she asked, when his sobs subsided.
“It will take some time for Laneth to place atern inside all the weapons he intends to use. Even with the accelerated time, I imagine we have a day, maybe more, to prepare.”
“Do you want some tea?”
He gave her a weak smile. “Do you have anything stronger?”
Niall followed Aisling into the library. She drew a small key from the pocket of her sweatshirt, and unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk. From the compartment, she withdrew the dusty absinthe bottle her grandmother kept there, along with two crystal glasses and two delicate silver spoons covered in tiny filigree designs. In the dim light, the liquid shone a clear green color.
Aisling didn’t usually touch the stuff. Bethany used to drink it from time to time, and she’d stalk the halls in a violent rage, calling curses down on the fae and the family, before she vomited down the steps and passed out in the ballroom. Cleaning up someone’s puke was a fine way to turn one off the temptation of the green fairy forever.
Now, the drink seemed profoundly apt. Aisling poured a measure of absinthe into each glass, balanced the spoons over the rims of the glasses, placed a sugar cube from her tea tray on top, and then poured iced water slowly over the cube, melting the sugar and transforming the clear alcohol into a beautiful cloudy drink.
She handed the glass to Niall, toasting him wordlessly. He tipped his head back and downed the absinthe in a single gulp. Aisling followed his example, her throat burning from the strong drink.
“Another,” Niall said, his voice hoarse from crying. He pushed his glass toward her. Aisling poured them both another measure, and tossed hers back. Her head spun.
“She loved me,” he said, wiping his eyes with his hands. “Odiana. She never said anything, but I could tell she wanted me to ask her to marry me. I knew it, and I reveled in it, in being the one a beauty like that desired. I was never going to ask her to marry me, but I didn’t tell her that. I just let her keep on believing, keep on hoping. She was my friend and she loved me, and this is how I treated her.”
“Sometimes hope is a good thing,” Aisling said. “I know, because I’ve lived without it for so long.”
“No, that doesn’t cut it. I’m not going to sit here over the body of my friend and claim I’m a person that gives others hope. I’m a horrible person, Aisling. I came here, not because of you, but because of my brother. I didn’t tell you the truth because I thought if you knew, you wouldn’t want me anymore, and I didn’t want to be alone in the house. I left Odiana all alone, and she’s been suffering. I could have helped her, but I was too selfish to see what was going on outside. And then I delivered the ultimate weapon right into Laneth’s hands.”
There was no reasoning with Niall when he was like this. He wanted to wallow in his pain. Aisling started to prepare another measure of absinthe for him, but then she happened to notice the shadows moving along the wall, just beyond the window.
“Niall, there are more people outside, in the yard.” Aisling got up, and walked over to the window, peering out at the figures as they boldly leapt over the garden wall and trampled across her frozen garden. They moved at superhuman speed, their bodies only a blur against the gathering storm.
“Not people. Fairies.” Niall came to stand beside her, his hand falling on her shoulder. He watched as the fae rolled an enormous steel tube across the overgrown grass, a thin cone at one end. They pointed the cone up at the house, and started unrolling a series of cables across the wall. Every one of the fae wore the green shirt and trousers of the Venators, and each carried a bow and quiver of arrows strapped across his or her back. “We’re seeing them sped up, because time’s passing out there faster than it is in here.”
“Is that the weapon?” Aisling asked. Niall nodded.
“I can see it glowing blue with atern. It’s been supercharged with power.”
“What do we do?”
Niall didn’t answer, but his gaze hardened. “There’s Laneth.”
Aisling followed his gaze to a tall, thickset fae standing to the side of the ray. He remained bone-still while the other fae bustled around him, his gray eyes darting over the house’s facade with a look of intense
hunger. His stillness made his features visible – his wide girth and regal face. The fae’s eyes fell on the window where they stood. He raised a hand and waved at them, his face breaking into a smile that had nothing to do with happiness.
“I’d like to wipe that smile off his face,” Niall growled, his hands balled into fists.
“As would I.”
Aisling glanced up at the portrait of Lady Greymouth hanging over the fireplace, her haughty chin held high, that yellow-eyed cat staring out with such derision. Would she have sat idle while the fae tore apart the house? She thought of Grandmother June, binding her power into the Hollow, giving her life that the house – and their family legacy – may continue.
“This is my house. I’m not letting them take it.” Aisling’s hands closed into fists. “Not without a fight.”
Niall looked at at her, and grinned. “Look at you, all burning with righteous anger. It’s gorgeous.”
“Are you going to help me?” she demanded.
“Damn right I am.”
“We have to control the entry points,” Niall said, as they carried splinters of the headboards into the library. Niall had found Bethany’s old axe in the greenhouse, and he’d chopped up all the larger pieces of heavy wood furniture into planks they could use for barricades. Widdershins curled around his feet while he worked, attempting to help in the way only cats could – by getting completely in the way. “The fae will get in eventually, especially if they’re drawing power from the place. It’s unavoidable. What we need to do is funnel them where we want them to go.”
“And where would that be?”
“Into the void, if we can manage it,” Niall said, setting down his pile and pulling out the hammers he’d found in the greenhouse. “This house has given you the means to get rid of your enemies. All we have to do is get them to fall into the trap.”
Aisling held the boards up to the window, while Niall nailed them in place, crisscrossing them to create a solid barrier. She watched the fae bustling around through her dwindling view. They connected all the wires to their weapon, and the fae called Laneth threw a comically large lever.
The house rumbled in protest as the beam from the machine hit the wall. Niall’s chair wobbled, and he had to grab the boards to keep from falling. He stared up at the ceiling, his expression darkening. “They’re tearing out the atern,” he said. “It won’t be long now.”
They finished nailing the boards over the library window, and Aisling placed an array of iron objects at the base of the barricade. If the fae broke through, they would land on the pile of iron candlesticks and tools, and it should slow them down. As they backed out of the room, Aisling cast a protection spell she’d learned from her grandmother’s books, placing a line of salt all around the edges of the library. She knew the fae would eventually overcome the spell, but it would slow them down.
They tipped over a large cabinet across the entrance to the east wing, and pushed a large heavy wardrobe in front of the ballroom doors. Aisling scattered these areas with her grandmother’s warding crystals, as well as more salt. With any luck, the fae would feel an instant jolt if they tried to enter those areas, and would follow the far easier path she and Niall had laid out for them.
At the threshold of the front door Aisling placed another pile of iron objects, hoping to hurt the fae as they came through.
While she did this, she heard Niall grunting with effort as he tore away the boards that closed off the dining room. Aisling didn’t want to see what lay beyond that door, knowing that she would be staring into the black hole of space itself. As much as she hated the fae, she didn’t want to kill them all. But she knew many would die tonight, in this great battle between the Hollow and Laneth, and she was desperately hoping it wouldn’t be her.
She stood at the end of the hallway, watching as Niall tipped over the large hall table to create a barricade, stacking the golden dog statues behind it as missiles. That done, he moved to the narrow staircase next to the dining room, the one leading down to wine cellar. Here he stacked the knives he’d taken from the kitchen, each of them sharpened to a razor’s edge. Their plan was to begin behind the table, and when the fae overwhelmed them there, to retreat to the staircase and use the weapons there to try to drive the fae into the void. Aisling didn’t have much hope that it would work, but she had long ago resigned herself to dying in the house, and she was damn well going to die fighting beside Niall.
Aisling ran back into the hall, and yanked the four heavy swords that hung between the portraits. She placed two on the staircase, and handed one to Niall. He swung it in the air, a wicked grin spreading across his face. At least he felt perfectly at ease with a weapon in his hands. Aisling eyed her own blade with apprehension, still trying to remember everything Niall had taught her about combat.
“What do we do now?” she said.
“Now we wait.” Niall’s hand fell around her waist, pulling her close. She took strength from the warmth of his body, from the warrior’s blood pulsing in his veins. This might be the last time she felt his skin against hers, and she cherished it, leaning her head against his shoulder and breathing deep of his unique scent, capturing this special part of him in her memory.
Widdershins jabbed her arm with his paw, and gave a tiny merrrww. Aisling cradled him in her arms, burying her face in his soft fur. “Run away, boy,” she whispered to him. “Go to your secret place and hide. If anyone should survive this, I really wish it is you.”
A tear fell from her eye and dashed itself against Widdershins’ fur. He bumped his cheek against hers, his body rumbling with a deep purr. Reluctantly, Aisling set him down on the ground, and he bolted across the hall, heading toward the ballroom doors, dusting his paws with salt granules as he disappeared around the side of the wardrobe.
They didn’t have to wait long. The house groaned again, and sparks fell down from the chandelier in the hall. Something scraped along the porch. And then, the front door rattled against its frame.
Bang bang bang
The sound reverberated around the hall like gunshots. The bangs grew louder, pounding against Aisling’s skull. Splintered wood flew off in all directions. The door sagged on its hinges. The house groaned in protest. In the skylight above, light flashed as the storm of the century raged overhead.
Bang bang bang
With a sickening crack, several boards flew off the door, scattering across the hall. The blade of an axe thrust through, slashing at the door to widen the hole.
The fae had breached the Hollow.
Niall leaned out from their hiding place behind the corner of the archway, and sent an arrow flying at the door. It caught the first fae in the throat as he swung his body through the hole. The fairy staggered back, his hands grabbing at the arrow, his mouth open. Blood dribbled down his chin. He fell across the threshold, and the next fae stepped over his body, not stopping to check if his comrade was alive.
Aisling’s hands burned with righteous fury. She squeezed her eyes shut and flung out her fingers, channelling all her energy at the advancing fae. To her surprise, heat surged from her palms. She opened her eyes, and saw a ball of fire spin across the room. The fire caught the fae square in the chest, his green tunic bursting into flames. He screamed as he went down, his long hair burning a bright halo around his tortured face. More warriors shoved their way through the hole in the door, tearing it wider. They trampled over the bodies of their comrades.
Niall’s arrows flew in all directions, hitting their marks with unbelievable efficiency. Aisling’s hands burned as she forced her rage out through her skin, as she channelled the energy the house had given to her into destroying its enemies with cleansing fire.
Niall flung his last arrow into the column of fae. He flung down his bow, and grabbed Aisling’s arm. “Retreat!” he yelled, dragging her back. AIsling scrambled after him, sprinting across the marble into the west hall. She leapt over the heavy desk, grabbing up her sword, holding it the way Niall had showed her. Her whole bo
dy trembled – a mixture of rage and fear.
Niall’s tactics worked perfectly. Here in the hall, the fae had to come at them in single file. They were as evenly matched as they could hope to be. The first warriors rounded the corner, drawing their own swords and grinning their self-satisfied fae grins, as though they’d already won.
Aisling’s hands on the hilt felt cold as ice. She didn’t think she could summon any more fire. This is it. This is where I die.
Niall leaned forward, and his sword clashed with the first fae.
The fight happened so fast, a blur of limbs and gritted teeth and shining steel. Aisling heard Niall cry out, and her whole body surged with new energy.
She plunged her blade into the fae’s neck. None of Niall’s training prepared her for the ease at which the blade sliced through the fairy’s flesh. His eyes bugged out of his head, and blood spurted from his open mouth. He collapsed to the ground, his blade sliding down Niall’s with a clang.
Aisling didn’t have time to gloat over her kill. A blade swung toward her face. Aisling ducked, and the fae who attacked her faltered as he regained his balance. She flung her sword up, aiming for his throat. But she wasn’t fast enough. He blocked her blow, and the force of his blade against hers reverberated up her arms. Her hands shook as she fought at the bind to hold him off.
“I’ll have you soon, witch,” the fae grinned, as he inched his blade closer to her face. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. You’ve too much atern to be wasted on the battlefield. Perhaps Laneth will let me take my pleasure with you before he strips the magic from your charred bones.”
Aisling gritted her teeth. Her shoulders shook from the pressure of holding his blade back. The point of his sword wobbled in front of her eye.
The fae’s eyes widened with surprise. The pressure on Aisling’s shoulder relaxed as he collapsed against the wall, the entire side of his face caked in blood. Niall withdrew his blade, dragging the tip along the edge of the fae’s temple. Her assailant opened his mouth to scream, but the hilt of Niall’s sword caught him across the jaw. The fae’s face exploded with blood. He doubled over, landing on top of his fallen comrade.
Hollow: Isa Fae paranormal romance (Fallen Sorcery Book 2) Page 18
