Noooooooooooooo!
The look of surprise in Redhart Jax's eyes was unmistakable. The Occulator had underestimated the strength of her heart; she'd passed his tests.
"Ashley! Ashley! Where are you?" Meghan Hawthorne stood silhouetted in the doorway, looking frantically for her daughter.
It took a moment, and then she saw her.
Meghan ran between two of the huge mirrors, sending one of them toppling. The glass broke into hundreds and hundreds of jagged shards and scattered across the floor of the chamber. In each tiny fragment there was a vivid reflection of another place, another day in Ashley Hawthorne's life. The reflections continued to move, playing out the events trapped in the. It was all part of Redhart Jax's elaborate plan to undermine Ashley and disprove her heritage. It didn't matter now. She wasn't Ashley Hawthorne anymore. She was Ash.
She pushed herself up to her hands and knees.
She felt a hand grab the hood of her duffel coat and stop her crawling away. She lowered her head. Her fringe fell across her face. She struggled to summon the strength to fight off the hands holding her. When she looked up again she saw the impossible: Blaze rushing in behind Meghan.
He had never looked more powerful. He seemed to stand a head taller than the first time she had seen him. His black hair streamed out behind him as he cut and thrust his claws. Ephram was beside him, fighting with what might have been the blade of a moonbeam. It's radiance made him look elemental. Fierce. Targyn Fae stood at his side, swinging her juggling clubs like great hammers. One of them connected with the side of a guard's skull. The sound was sickening. He went down as though every bone had been removed from his body.
They had come for her.
Ashley had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life. "Mum!" She shouted, and then more desperately, "Mum!" as the grip tightened on the hood of her duffel coat and Jax started to haul her up. She kicked out against him, fighting desperately to be free.
Meghan saw her then, on her knees, head tilted back, eyes wild with fear, and saw Jax standing over her. They were frozen there like that for a split second.
And then his claws came slashing down towards Ashley's throat.
Several things happened in that single moment; there were lots of little things, and they were all significant in their own way, like the Centaur's surprised bray and frantic side-shuffle as the scent of blood hit its nostrils. That single side step forced several people close by to move back, which in turn triggered a chain reaction that rippled right the way through the crowd, blocking the way and preventing Blackwater Blaze from running to her side.
But for all the little things, there were only four fundamental things that happened in that moment, and together shaped the rest of Ashley Hawthorne's life.
If any one of them hadn't happened, she would have died there and then. If any of them had happened in a slightly different way, even a fraction of a second later, she almost certainly wouldn't have walked out of the Occulum. One could almost believe something guided the hand of fate, making these four things happen at just the moment they were needed. Magic is like that more often than not. Unseen. Subdued, not ostentatious. Unremarkable. It is the universe's way of regulating itself. It makes lives that need to connect at any given time and place connect. There's nothing random about it, no matter how random it might feel. It is only when chaos is added into the equation that the patterns of life change. Perhaps that is magic.
The first of the four events happened to Meghan. She wasn't like the others. She didn't have the ability to manipulate light like Ephram Wanderer and fashion a sword from a moonbeam. She didn't have any special weapons at all, not even juggler's clubs like Targyn Fae. She didn't have hexes or wards like Paget, the wyrd sister. She couldn't reduce the Occulator to a writhing wreck on the floor with a handful of wolfsbane.
She was a normal woman.
The only thing magical about her was that she loved her daughter.
But in the great scheme of things there was no greater magic than that.
Seeing her little girl in trouble Meghan Hawthorne was transformed. In that instant she turned wild. She fought off two of the Redpelts that stood in her way. One of the creatures rose up on its hind legs, making it half again as tall as Meghan. It made no difference to Meghan. It could have been ten times taller than her. She didn't even hesitate. She ran straight at the Wolfen, shoving the Redpelt aside.
The guard went sprawling into the path of a third of its kind as it tried to intercede. The pair of them ended up at the feet of the King.
The second happened because of a trick of the light, allowing Blaze to see the gleam of Sunshade poison on Redhart Jax's razor-sharp claws as he was poised to cut Ash down, while the press of bodies between them prevented him from reaching her in time.
She had survived the first trial, the test of her heart, and it had been pure. Jax had no intention of putting her through any remaining trial because there was no way she was going to fail them.
But Jax wasn't going to allow her to wear the Briar Crown.
Blaze loosed a huge primal howl, channelling his fury into it. Every muscle tensed as he prepared to force his way through the press of bodies. His cry was deafening as it swept up into the glass walls and, working like a tuning fork, made the entire room resonate with his frustration.
It was the howl that changed everything; it caused a series of short sharp cracks to detonate. And with each crack another one of the anchors suspending the Orrery of all of those moons above their heads broke. That was the second thing, though really it was a culmination of lots of those other small things.
The third thing happened to Ashley.
In that moment, as the first of the cracks up above them resounded, she twisted violently, trying to wriggle away from Jax's poisoned claws. The suddenness of the movement dislodged the mobile phone from the goggles around her neck. She had forgotten she had wedged it there a few moments ago—because those few moments felt like forever ago already. The phone hit the floor. Somehow the screen didn't shatter.
She saw the King Under the Moon staring at her over the phone.
He couldn't know what she had done, but her body language and the way she looked at the phone as it skittered across the floor away from her and then went scrambling after it surely betrayed its importance?
The King's mask had slipped again. She could see his face. Or the thing he had in place of a face—the writhing mass of black tentacles with their oleaginous suckers dripping ichor. They pulsed and writhed, licking at the air like the snakes of a gorgon's hair. This was him. All of him, exposed. Vulnerable.
Ashley scrambled forward desperately, ducking Jax's glistening claws, to grab the phone. She felt the long fake tooth button of her duffel coat jab into her throat as Jax snared her hood and hauled her back. It didn't matter. She held the phone, and the phone held the truth.
But what good was the truth if she couldn't get people to see it? It was all well and good to make a sneaky film through the lens of the alethioptics but she could hardly go around the room one person at a time saying 'Look at this!' could she?
But how else would they be able to see just how sick the King Under the Moon was?
And without seeing the truth nothing would change.
Nothing could change.
But in that moment she held the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in her hands. That gave her power, despite the downward-slashing arc of Redhart Jax's poisoned claws.
She pressed play on the phone's recording, and wished, wished, wished everyone who needed to see it could.
The fourth and final thing happened because of the King Under the Moon.
All things are connected by invisible threads; that is the great secret of the universe. Some people have the ability to pull those threads, to unravel events and causes and make things happen. The King was one of those remarkable individuals, as was Ashley, although she was only just beginning to come into her power. It was the most powerful gift of al
l, trumping magical swords and all kinds of acrobatics, illusion and suggestion. It was more powerful than a fireball or the irresistible power of words.
It was unique because it was one of the Fae blessings bestowed only upon the kings and queens of their kind. It went with the blood. And that proved beyond any doubt that Ashley was Tanaquill's daughter. The irony was that it also meant that the King was unquestionably her father.
Ignorant of the fact that his daughter's latent talent was waking even as he faced her across the Occulum's floor, his only thought was to finish what he had started. He meant to consume her, just as he had consumed her mother, and just as he was consuming what little remained of her father. He liked the taste of her family.
The King pulled down on that last thread, yanking it hard with a cry of: "Kill her!"
Two words.
That was all it took.
Suddenly the room was in chaos.
"Get away from my daughter!" Meghan Hawthorne cried, seeing Jax's claws slash down. Even before the second word was out of her mouth Blaze saw his opening and launched himself. His leap took him out across the floor, over the bank of mirrors and into Redhart Jax's back. The impact was enough to make the Occulator's claws miss Ashley's throat.
And then the stars and the moons fell from the sky as the Orrery came crashing down.
THIRTY-TWO
The Sick King
There was absolute silence following the crash, and then that silence was filled by the voice of the King Under the Moon coming from Ashley's mobile phone.
"Can you feel it? Can you feel the bond between our bodies? I can. That's how I know it's you." The King chuckled mirthlessly.
"What are you going to do to me?" That was Ashley's voice.
"I can't let you take my throne, can now I? No matter how much I loved your mother, or might have wanted to love you, this is who I am. I am the King Under the Moon. This is my world. The Tribes are mine. I can't let you leave this room. You understand that don't you? I know Jax has promised you a fair trial," he laughed bitterly. "But I can't let that happen. I can't risk the chance that the fools will want to see Titania's bloodline restored. It has to end here. I would say it's nothing personal, but it is. It's completely personal. I like the way your blood tastes."
"What happened to you?"
"Ask your precious Ephram Wanderer. Ask Targyn Fae. Ask Paget and her ugly sisters. Ask the dwarf and those other traitors who tore you out of the bosom of your family. They made me who I am. I wasn't always like this. Now come to daddy."
"No."
"Oh, don't be like that. It won't hurt. Are you afraid?"
She screamed, but it was muffled.
It was too quiet. The sound hadn't carried.
"Play it again!" Targyn Fae yelled. She didn't know what good it was supposed to do. Blaze had Jax in a deadly embrace, huge arms wrapped around his neck just waiting to choke the life out of him. He was covered in blood, battered from his fight with the King but he was alive, beautifully, wonderfully alive. Ephram Wanderer stood side-by-side with Blaze. The moonbeam blade in Ephram's hand was shimmering and fading. He edged slowly step-by-step back until he stood beside her.
She looked down at the sword that wasn't a sword at all.
The old man looked her in the eye and said: "What do you need?"
She didn't understand.
"What do you need more than anything?"
"I don't—"
"What do you need? Tell me."
Ashley wanted to ask: why? Why bother? They can't see the truth. It doesn't matter. It's pointless. But before she could Meghan Hawthorne shouted, "Don't argue! Just tell him!" And if ever there was a moment Ashley had needed to be reminded who her mother really was, that was it. Despite everything, despite the chaos all around them, Meghan knew her so well she'd been able to hear her daughter's objection even before she'd been able to act like a normal teenager for the first time since entering the Council of the Moon, and had become her mother all over again.
Ashley trusted her with her life. It was as simple as that. She'd crossed worlds to save her. That was the least she could do.
"I need them to know the truth," she said, looking up at the three hundred frightened faces that had been summoned to witness her return.
She pressed play and the King's voice spilled from her phone again, but this time it was different, louder, amplified by the spell of absolute need.
Targyn ran around the room tearing down the heavy velvet cloths draped over the mirrors. The glass from the shattered Orrery crunched under her feet. She moved fast, grasping the curtains hiding two mirrors at a time and heaved them down. Several of the mirrors had been damaged by the Orrery's collapse. Those showed nothing. No past, no present, no future. They were split by a web of black fissures. There were only three mirrors that remained undamaged, and each one showed the same thing. It took her a moment to recognise what they were showing, because the image was dark and grainy, but as the King's voice boomed out: "Can you feel it? Can you feel the bond between our bodies? I can. That's how I know it's you." She knew exactly what it was.
The mirrors were attuned to her life; Redhart Jax had done that.
Once the Coribrae had found her, he'd trained the mirrors on her and had them watch her every move, looking for evidence to bring her down. But she didn't need that. That was why Ephram had asked her what she needed, more than anything. She didn't know if he'd done it or if she'd done it herself, but the mirrors had picked up on her need, and changed their focus. They were showing everyone in the Council of the Moon what had happened down in that prison cell in the Bones of the Shard.
The truth was there for them all to see: the King threatening to murder his own child for the sake of that power he so desperately craved.
His wriggling tentacles, the sucking pit where his mouth should have been, and the sheer blackness inside him.
"I can't let you take my throne, can now I? No matter how much I loved your mother, or might have wanted to love you, this is who I am. I am the King Under the Moon. This is my world. The Tribes are mine. I can't let you leave this room. You understand that don't you? I know Jax has promised you a fair trial," he laughed bitterly. "But I can't let that happen. I can't risk the chance that the fools will want to see Titania's bloodline restored. It has to end here. I would say it's nothing personal, but it is."
The threat hung in the air, amplified so that it carried to everyone in the chamber.
"It's completely personal. I like the way your blood tastes…"
She held the silver locket. Touching it, here, now, like this, brought her into contact with the memories embedded in it.
One memory in particular.
The image in the glass changed. It was no longer the leering King in the prison cell, it was the same face but different, the same sickness, but different. It was the King Under the Moon and he was dying.
"You've got to help me," he pleaded.
Ashley had no idea what she was seeing. This wasn't her memory. The King was on his deathbed. Fever sweats matted his hair. His complexion was deathly pale and waxy. He reached out with one weak liver-spotted hand and clutched at Redhart Jax's robes.
"I don't want to die. Not yet. I can't leave Tanaquill. Not so soon. We have a child coming."
"It is as it must be, my King."
"It's not fair. You've got to help me. Please, Jax. Anything."
"You must let go. Tanaquill will join you Beneath the Mountain when it is her time. That is the nature of love." Beneath the Mountain, Ashley thought, that must be the Fae equivalent of heaven. Or perhaps it was hell, given it was underground? "Be grateful that you have had such love in your life that it will live on eternally."
"I'll do anything, just don't let me die. Give me more time."
The old man was crying.
Redhart Jax hovered at the edge of the bed, wanting to be away but knowing duty demanded he remain with his king until the end. Ashley watched him, fascinated and horrified at once, b
ecause this time she could see herself in the dying man, in his gestures and in leathery skin. And even as he begged for more time she knew it was to protect her and her mother.
Whatever it was that made him a monster, he gave himself to it for love.
"There is one thing I can try," the Jax in the looking glass said.
"Then do it."
Jax said nothing.
"Who am I?"
"You are my king."
"Exactly. And when I ask something of you, if it is in your power to do it, you do it."
"Yes, my liege, but—"
"There are no buts, Jax. My wife needs me. My daughter will need me. I am not ready to go Beneath the Mountain. You know the future—your damned mirrors showed it to me. She will die giving birth to Ashkellion. If I am not there to protect her they'll drown my girl in the well and be done with it, and that will be the end of Titania and Alberich's line and the peace that has been hundreds of years in fashioning. The dark will rise."
"I can protect the child."
"But not like I can," the dying king said. "I am her father."
"I can take her to the other side, hide her until she is grown. I can give her time. Let me serve you one last time, Elbegast."
The dying man didn't answer for the longest time. He tried, but as he opened his mouth a savage coughing fit wracked his frail body. By the time he stopped coughing the entire Council of the Moon was as eerily quiet as room in the mirror. "There's too much at stake," he managed finally. "If I die the Moon-Torn will rise up and consume everything I've worked so hard to achieve. There will be no peace."
"It doesn't have to be that way, Elbegast."
"No, it doesn't. If you can help me live, even if only for another year, you must. Do you understand?"
Ephram Wanderer sighed. The Redhart Jax in the mirror echoed it. They were tragic, haunted sounds. He squeezed her hand tighter and whispered, "What did he do?" And in the mirror Jax said, "I understand, but there will be a price."
"I will pay it, willingly, whatever it is."
"You do not understand."
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