The Gatekeeper's Trials: The Complete Trilogy

by Emma L. Adams

  “Your mother told me the names on the family tree matched last night’s victim,” he said.

  “You talked to my mother? When?” Please tell me she didn’t give him the sex talk, too. That was all I needed.

  “When she caught me watching the gate this morning.”

  “You mean our gate? In our garden?” He’d been watching the Lynn house while I’d been sleeping? Had he seen the Inner Garden? Surely not—he’d have brought it up right away if he had—but a rush of panic and anger seized hold of me.

  “Lord Daival attacked your family before,” he said.

  “That’s none of your business.” Couldn’t he leave well enough alone? The Erlking’s talisman was the last piece of leverage I had left against the Seelie Queen, and if he and Etaina kept intervening, Lord Daival would be able to get away with taking more lives. “My family can take care of ourselves. You’re lucky Mum didn’t skewer you on the spot.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t watch your family while you’re here in Faerie. If you had faith that I’m not out to harm you—”

  “Don’t make this about you, Darrow.” Anger and guilt churned inside me. He wasn’t to know the odds of Lord Daival targeting my house again were slim now he’d seen the talisman move of its own accord and devour his pet wraith. “Look, I appreciate the effort, and I’m grateful for the help, but you’re Etaina’s…”

  “Etaina’s what?”

  Don’t say servant, Hazel. “The point is, you’re reporting my every move to her. Can you blame me for feeling edgy about you watching my house at night?”

  “I wasn’t doing it for her.” His voice was quiet, but each word was precise. “If she found out, she’d be incredibly displeased with me for wasting my time rather than doing my job.”

  You were doing your job. You just didn’t know you were a breath away from the Erlking’s talisman.

  “Can we not do this now?” I said. “Coral’s brother is set to be executed today, and Lord Daival will be back to claim another victim. I doubt the Sidhe will be up for another party to bait him, but he’s coming here one way or another.”

  The palace doors flew open, and Lord Niall stormed into the hall, his peacock-blue cloak swirling and his eyes ablaze. What was the master of revels doing here? He looked, if possible, more pissed off than he had when he’d seen several of his people slaughtered yesterday.

  Lord Niall stalked towards me, his mouth pulled taut with rage. “Today, I received a note informing me that one potential heir will die each day the Summer Gatekeeper refuses to cooperate with Lord Daival. You set me up to host that party to lure him into a trap, and when it failed, he slaughtered us. You have our blood on your hands, Gatekeeper.”

  Crap. Had Lord Raivan ratted me out? Or Lady Aiten, to get me back for not confiding in her?

  “It was my idea,” I admitted, “but I didn’t want to cause a panic, especially as nobody knew the heir’s identity. I thought he’d show up in person—"

  “You lied to all of us,” he spat, his eyes sparkling dangerously. “Thanks to you, seven fine warriors are dead.”

  I took a step back. “I told Lord Raivan, and it was his decision whether to share my plan or not. Lord Daival didn’t give me the name of the person he was going to target, and if the entire Court knew he was going after the potential heirs of Summer, there’d have been a riot.”

  “You have no authority over us, human,” he said. “I will see to it that you have your Gatekeeper’s title removed, and you’ll never set foot in this realm again.”

  Whoa. “Hang on, there. I’m sorry for those who died, but Lord Daival is the enemy here. He’s coming back—”

  “To kill the heir,” said Lord Niall. “Our next monarch.”

  “A potential heir,” I said. “That might be any of you. Nobody knows who the heir is, like I told you.”

  “Lord Daival does,” Lord Niall said. “He bragged of it.”

  Several gasps came from behind him. A number of other Sidhe had entered the hall, silently, and fanned out behind the master of revels.

  Fuck you, Lord Daival. He’d let the Sidhe know exactly what he was doing, and the Sidhe, predictably, had skipped all the way to full-scale panic.

  A light-skinned male Sidhe with fair hair stepped to Lord Niall’s side, wielding a sword that rippled with Summer magic. “Do you think your foul human blood makes you superior to us? Let’s spill it and see.”

  I called on my Gatekeeper’s magic, forming a shield in front of me. “Lord Daival is coming back for another victim today. Focus on him, not me.”

  “I will not allow you to deceive us any longer, Gatekeeper,” said Lord Niall. “You will give up your title, or you will die.”

  “Yeah, there’s a slight problem with that,” I said. “This pesky curse in my family name makes it impossible for me to step down.”

  “Then we’ll lock you up,” said the fair-haired Sidhe. “For the rest of your pathetic mortal existence.”

  “The traitors are being executed today,” said a female Sidhe with thorns growing from her head in place of hair. “She should join them.”

  “Did you not hear the part about the curse?” Magic sizzled off my shield, bouncing right back at the Sidhe who’d thrown it at me. He darted to the side, his eyes sparkling with rage. “If you try to use magic on me, it’ll only backfire. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  If I drew a weapon, I’d land myself in even deeper shit, but like hell was I going to let them attack me without defending myself.

  Coral hurried to my side. “I think you should consult with the higher Sidhe before making rash decisions, Lord Niall. If you want to make a complaint against the Gatekeeper, Lord Raivan and Lady Aiten are the people to talk to.”

  “Why should that be so?” said Lord Niall. “None of us elected to have a human running around our Court, leaving a trail of lies everywhere she walks.”

  “Tell that to my ancestor, not me,” I said. “I’m trying to help you. Lord Daival wants to turn us against one another, and it’s working. Lady Aiten tasked me with catching him, so if you don’t like my methods, you’re welcome to take your complaints straight to her.”

  “You have no respect for us, mortal,” said the blond Sidhe. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind when I carve you up.”

  A jet of blue-green magic slammed into the Sidhe’s weapon, freezing it in his grip. Thanks, Darrow. Coral tugged on my arm, indicating a tapestry which concealed a hidden passage. There was a time to fight and a time to run—and now was definitely the latter. Darrow stepped between me and the Sidhe, while I ducked behind the tapestry and into the stone-walled passageway.

  “Thanks,” I whispered to Coral, stepping into the dark.

  “C’mon.” Coral grabbed my arm and pulled me after her. “Stay out of range until they calm down. I sent some of the others to find Lady Aiten.”

  “Assuming she doesn’t join the mob herself.” We emerged from the passage into another corridor, where a door near the end led into the palace grounds. “What the hell do I do now? Lord Daival did this on purpose. He’s going to kill one of them while everyone’s distracted, and they’ll probably blame me for that, too.”

  “I know, Hazel, but they won’t listen to reason at the moment.” Coral indicated the woods at the back of the house. “Run into the forest—anywhere will do—and leave a false trail. I can help, but Darrow is better at creating illusions than I am.”

  “Illusions. Good idea.” An uneasy pang hit me at the image of Darrow fighting the Sidhe alone in order to help me escape, but it wouldn’t do us any good if I turned back now. He’d be fine: he had his glamour magic.

  I ran for the maze where Darrow and I had once trained together, and its hedges rose above my head, soft leaves cushioning my footsteps. Taking aim, I conjured up a couple of glamoured Hazels and sent them around the corner of the palace. My clones weren’t as detailed or convincing as Darrow’s, but they should be enough to lead my pursuers astray and allow me to make my
escape.

  As I emerged from the maze into the mass of shadowy trees beyond, I spotted a group of Sidhe crossing the lawn in pursuit of one of my illusions. Giving myself a mental high-five, I wandered deeper into the woods. I needed to go somewhere the Sidhe wouldn’t follow me, or at least somewhere they wouldn’t expect me to go. The Gatekeeper’s training grounds were deserted, but they might be too obvious a choice. The Erlking’s territory might work, but Lord Daival wouldn’t find any of his potential murder victims there, and despite the Sidhe’s ingratitude, I had a job to do.

  The jail. If nothing else, I’d be able to ensure Lord Daival wasn’t lying in wait to intervene at the executions. The guards wouldn’t allow Lord Niall and his cronies to start a brawl outside the jail—I hoped.

  Lord Raivan’s meadow lay somewhere nearby, so I turned in that direction, hoping the Sidhe wouldn’t expect me to linger so close to the palace. With Faerie’s tendency to rearrange the world at will, I hadn’t the faintest clue how to get to the jail from here without someone to give me directions, and besides, I had words to say to Lord Raivan about letting Lord Niall attack me in the one supposed safe zone for humans. Then again, Darrow had one thing right—the guy was an unreliable coward who was out for himself alone.

  A steady breeze swept towards me, carrying the fragrant scents of Summer’s forest—and beneath, the bitter tang of decay.

  I halted at the edge of a clearing, flanked with trees. Their trunks rotted, heaving with dead leaves, and the skeletal remains of human-like faces were visible in the bark, etched in expressions of despair and misery. Dryads. Dead—very dead. The rotting trees bore an eerie resemblance to the Erlking’s territory when his talisman’s magic had run amok, but the dying dryad I’d met in Half-Blood Territory was the closest comparison.

  Past the trees lay wilted flowers, their enticing scents turned sour, and dead piskies sprawled in the beds of roses, steeped in the sickly smell of rot. Above all, the green glow that pervaded Summer territory was eerily absent. The magic sustaining all life had seeped out of this area as though someone had left a doorway into the Vale open, with an effect like blood leaking from an open wound.

  The only magic I could sense at all was my own, pulsing from the circlet and bringing a glow to my hands. Healing the damage to the forest would require more magic than I was willing to expend, and the destruction didn’t end here. I trod further, finding more dead trees, their trunks buried in a bed of rotting leaves.

  I scanned the undergrowth for a doorway into the Vale, a life-eating monster—anything to explain the decay, the lack of magic, the despair and death. How had nobody noticed part of their Court rotting from the inside out?

  “Wonderful, isn’t it?” said a familiar voice. “The darkness festers, and the Court will soon rot from within.”

  I stiffened, raising my iron blade when a Sidhe glided out from behind a tree onto the path in front of me.

  Lord Daival.

  17

  The sight of Lord Daival—or something that looked like him, anyway—brought a groan to my lips. “I don’t have time for more bullshit, Lord Daival. Unless you’re going to tell me you were responsible for this, so I can add it to my reasons to turn you into an iron pincushion. Then by all means, go ahead.”

  “This?” He indicated the rotting trees and beds of wilting flowers. “This decay is the result of the darkness that festers in the absence of a ruler of Summer. With nobody wearing the crown, the Court’s magic is weakening, and soon enough, the Sidhe will begin to feel it, too. Their strength will wane, and they will be ill-equipped to handle the threats to come.”

  Chills gripped me, not just at his eager tone, but because he didn’t talk like an illusion created by magic. Most didn’t have Darrow’s skills to make glamours who acted exactly like the person they imitated.

  He wasn’t an illusion this time. He was real.

  “You bastard,” I said. “What did you do, send Lord Niall a letter telling him your plans?”

  “The Sidhe deserve to know their fate,” he said. “I’ve never met a Gatekeeper as devious as you, Hazel Lynn. Scheming behind the Sidhe’s backs, deceiving them with every minute you spend in their realm…”

  “Your point?” I reached for the blade strapped to my waist. “At least tell me my plan gave you some trouble. Forced you to change things up a little. Did you tell your people which potential heirs to trick the Sidhe into killing?”

  “It didn’t matter either way,” he said, straight-faced. “There is no heir, only the rightful Queen.”

  He doesn’t know who the heir is. The sprite hasn’t given in yet.

  “I beg to differ,” I said. “If you aren’t interested in who the heir is, why don’t you do us all a favour and hand the Erlking’s sprite over? There’s no sense in continuing to torture a harmless creature when you don’t care about the information he has.”

  Lord Daival gave me a pitying look. “His torture is over. The sprite claimed he would rather die than reveal the truth.”

  Bile burned my throat. “You killed him?”

  I should have known Lord Daival wouldn’t have the patience to wait for answers, not when the truth didn’t matter. Nobody else in the Court knew who the heir was, and now… nobody ever would.

  I raised my iron blade and pointed it at the exposed skin of his neck. “If you hand yourself in, the Sidhe will show you more mercy than I will.”

  Thorns wrapped around the blades in his hands. “You should have died of those wounds, Gatekeeper. That talisman you stole can only destroy, not heal.”

  “You know nothing about my talisman.” My blade clashed with his, jarring my wrist. Thorny vines lashed at my skin, and I sliced down, severing them. “Or the Gatekeepers. Would your queen be happy if you strike me dead and force her to face the backlash of youf choice?”

  Dodging whirling thorns, I launched into another attack, dealing a glancing blow to his arm. His armoured sleeve repelled the iron. He’d left no skin exposed except for his face, and the thorny magic wrapping around his hands formed sharp-edged gloves trailing threads of magic that snagged the edge of my blade. Dodging the thorns and deflecting his sword at the same time used all my energy, and despite my best efforts, I found myself losing ground. As long as those blasted thorns got in my way, I’d be at a disadvantage.

  Lure him through the gates into the talisman’s path. It’ll eat the flesh from his bones.

  Quiet, I told the sinister voice in my head. I wouldn’t put my family in danger just to be in with a shot at using the talisman on him. Besides, he’d never let me lure him willingly within range of the talisman’s magic.

  “You’re weak, Gatekeeper,” he said softly. “You have a mere slither of the Court’s magic to call your own, while I have far more than Summer magic on my side. I have the power of the Lord of Thorns.”

  “Did you come up with that title or did you steal it along with your talisman?” I cut and hacked, severing more vines, but they kept growing, fuelled by the magic in his hands. He had an unlimited supply, while the dead trees and rotting leaves wouldn’t respond to my own Summer magic. Each strike jarred the blade in my palm, while every lash of thorn snagged my clothes or skin. A sharp sting lashed my cheek, and I bit back a wince.

  “I think I’ve toyed with you enough, Gatekeeper.”

  A wave of thorns shot from his hands like a flurry of arrows. With a curse, I flung myself behind a rotting tree. The thorns struck the tree, hammering into it like steel bullets. Footsteps set me on the move again, and I ducked out from the tree to see the back of Lord Daival’s head as he departed. Running away?

  No… moving onto his next target. Either the heir or the jail—where dozens of Sidhe gathered to wait for the executions.

  I broke into a sprint after him, cursing the Sidhe for their ability to run for miles without tiring. He was too damned fast and agile, leaping clear of the fallen branches with a swiftness I’d never achieve no matter how I tried. My lungs burned and my legs ached from the e
ffort to keep him within sight, but I refused to let him escape this time. I pushed on past the rotting trees and into the sun-drenched forest of evergreens which formed the main part of the Summer Court. My circlet’s light brightened in response to the return of Summer’s magic, and I raised my hand and imbued the trees with a torrent of power. The trees parted before me, revealing Lord Daival up ahead. You won’t get away that easily.

  I fed more power into the trees, whose branches grew, forming a net that blocked his path. Lord Daival blasted them aside without breaking his stride. Undeterred, I drove my magic at a branch overhead, sending it crashing into his path, but he simply leapt over it with inhuman swiftness.

  “You still seek to undo me with your Gatekeeper’s magic alone?” he said. “My queen will put that talisman to better use.”

  “It’ll never be hers.” A fresh burst of speed took me, fuelled by rage, my knives rattling against my legs. Taking aim, I conjured an illusory troll into his path. He kept running, breaking the illusion the instant he caught it up, but the reminder of another trick Darrow had pulled during my Trials gave me an idea.

  Raising my hand, I fired off a jet of magic at a tree on my right, urging it to grow, branches extending to brush its neighbours. Then I leapt for a low-hanging branch and climbed into the canopy. Using magic to steady the trees beneath me, I began leaping from one branch to the next in a zigzagging trail that brought me closer to him with every tree. I conjured more illusions at every opportunity to block his path, and while he broke them with ease, each distraction closed the distance between us.

  When I was less than ten feet away, I hurled an iron dagger at him from behind. The hilt smacked him in the back of the head, sending him staggering to a brief halt. I jumped to the neighbouring tree, riding its growing branches to a tree just across from Lord Daival, and threw a second dagger. This one hit his jaw with a satisfying ringing noise.

  Lord Daival spun on me with a snarl, an ugly red mark on his jaw. “You should have run while you could, Gatekeeper.”