Wicked Enchantment

by Anya Bast

  Somehow, Aislinn was the Shadow King’s direct descendant —his daughter. Since Aodh had said that Aislinn was both a necromancer and his relative, that meant she had inherited the magickal abilities of his family’s maternal line. That could only mean she was the granddaughter of Brigid Fada Erinne O’Dubhuir.

  The Shadow King feared Aislinn’s strength. She was the heir to the Unseelie Throne and the king knew he could never hold his seat against her if she decided she wanted it. The only way to ensure he kept his throne was to kill her. He needed to do it before Aislinn learned how to wield her significant power.

  The door to the cell opened and the one person he wanted least to see walked within. “Gabriel.”

  Gabriel spit on the floor near the Shadow King’s expensively shod foot, narrowly missing the crystal-knobbed fighting staff he used as a walking stick.

  Silence.

  “I’d appreciate it if you would leave so I can rot in peace,” said Gabriel in his iron sickness-ruined voice without looking up.

  The Shadow King’s shoes stepped back and the royal paced to the opposite side of the tiny cell. “Come now, Gabriel. I don’t want you here any more than you want to be here.”

  He lifted his gaze and cemented it on the Shadow King’s eyes. “Harm Aislinn and I’ll find a way to destroy you. Count on it.”

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned that before, though I fail to see how you’d be able to keep your word.” His gaze strayed to the charmed iron. “I think we have the better of you.”

  “I’ll find a way,” Gabriel ground out.

  “I did what I had to do. You, of all people, should understand that sometimes you have to do unsavory things to survive. I know all about your teenage years in the back alleys of Piefferburg.”

  Gabriel didn’t hear anything but the tense the Shadow King spoke in. I did what I had to do. Past tense. Aislinn, past tense.

  Gabriel was up and running at the Shadow King before he even realized he’d moved. The cuffs snapped his arms back when he reached the end of the chain, like a dog on a leash. “What did you do to her, Aodh? I swear to the gods if you hurt her, I will make you pay.”

  The Shadow King blinked innocently at him. “There we go with the empty threats again. Gabriel, as I said, I did what I had to do. It’s as simple as that. Now, please, forgive me and let’s allow this to flow under the bridge. I need you exactly where you are—leading the Wild Hunt. I’m sorry you became so attached to this woman. It was . . . unfortunate.”

  “This woman?” Gabriel roared. “She is your daughter. She is your blood.” He refused to use past tense when speaking of her. He pulled on his chains, making them clank. Every square inch of his body throbbed. “If I ever get out of here, I’ll take you off that throne you love so much.”

  “I intend to keep my throne,” the Shadow King barked. “The woman came to the Black of her own free will. I have you to thank for that. She never would have come if not for the part you played.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes against a swell of nausea. Gods, no.

  The Shadow King sighed and turned toward the door. “I’ll give you a week to come to your senses. Aeric is covering you at the moment, but if you still feel this way when I return, I’ll have to make his temporary position permanent and you know what that means.”

  Gabriel seethed and stared at the closed door, his chest rising and falling rapidly in his rage. The rage was good, better than the despair and grief that nibbled on the edges of his mind. If he gave in to the despair and grief he truly would be helpless, but rage was a tool he could use. He’d learned that as a child and it was a lesson he’d never forgotten.

  Aislinn was dead and it was his fault.

  He’d trusted where he shouldn’t have. That was a lesson he’d learned as a boy, too—never trust. Yet he’d trusted the Shadow King not to harm her. Stupid, foolish man. It was his fault Aislinn had met her end; his fault one of the brightest lights in Piefferburg was now extinguished.

  That odd feeling that he’d identified as guilt was now completely eclipsed—drowned—in a sensation he hadn’t felt since he was a child—grief. It was an open wound in the middle of him and would cause him pain for the rest of his life.

  Which, blessedly, wouldn’t be very long.

  DRIFTING.

  The pain in his wrists kept Gabriel from sleeping at night, that and his failure to find a way to escape. His mouth was dry, his head pounded, and his body felt drained of energy constantly as a result of the charmed iron touching his skin.

  Shifting on the thin mattress of his bed, he allowed his arms to dangle suspended above his head by the chain. They were asleep, but it didn’t matter. The dangerous despair had nibbled its way in and settled into the center of his bones. It gathered at the back of his throat like a poisonous berry he couldn’t quite swallow.

  Aislinn was dead and there was no way things could ever go back to the way they had been before. It didn’t matter that the iron sickness had leached into every pore of his body or that he couldn’t even feel the trail of blood snaking its way down his arms from his wrists.

  For most of the night he’d drowsed, slipping in and out of awareness, the scent of blood and unwashed body caught in his nostrils. It was toward the edge of dawn that he heard the scuffle in the corridor.

  Raised voices, shouting.

  He made no move to sit up. There was no way to do that without extreme pain and, anyway, likely it was only a prisoner uprising of some sort. His eyelids drifted downward and he wished whoever it was well. May they cause the prison guards hell.

  Drifting.

  “Gabriel.”

  He forced his too-heavy eyelids open to find Aeric staring at him. Licking his dry lips, he stared back. This had to be a hallucination. He’d finally gone over the edge of his sanity. There was no way anyone could break into the prison. With the possible exception of Ronan or his brother Niall, but it was Aeric looking at him now.

  “Get up, Gabriel. We’re getting you out of here.” Aeric grinned and dangled a key in front of his eyes.

  Gabriel grimaced and closed his eyes again. “Go away.”

  He wanted to dream of sweet Aislinn of the silver blond hair and gray eyes, of the sweet curves he could explore at his leisure in this place while her sighs and murmurs filled his ears. In his dreams she was warm and alive, laughing and dancing. Happy and in love with him. In his dreams he’d done things differently and she’d survived the insane Shadow King. Bells tinkled here and contentment reigned. They were together.

  He liked his dreams.

  Above him, the hallucination of Aeric growled, his light Irish brogue suddenly thicker. “You’re getting up if I have to rip your arms off. We’re risking our lives to get you out of this hole. Don’t give up on me, man, or I will kick your ass.”

  “We’re?” He opened his eyes to view his host blearily. All of them had come. Melia stood behind Aeric, and Aelfdane was guarding the cell door. Ah, and there was Ronan standing near Bran. And was that Niall over there? Maybe this wasn’t a hallucination after all.

  Aeric yanked him to a sitting position and unlocked his cuffs. Gabriel grunted in discomfort. “You didn’t think we were just going to leave you in here, did you? I don’t aspire to lead the hunt, my friend. That’s your job.” He gave his head a sharp shake. “I don’t want it.”

  Pain shot through his arms and into his hands as the blood rushed back through. He made fists and gritted his teeth. The ache was good; at least it was something other than the bitter numbness that had been ruling him.

  “Aislinn,” he pushed out. “The Shadow King killed her and it’s my fault. Just leave me here.”

  “She’s still alive,” said Ronan. “He’s holding her in the dungeon.”

  Relief rushed through him so hard and so fast it made him light-headed. If Aislinn was still alive, there was a chance he could get to her, get her out of this mess, and make up for the wrongs he’d done her.

  He had many more questions, but they’d have to w
ait. He couldn’t help her if he was still locked up in here. Gabriel stood, listed to the side, but caught himself before he collapsed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “That’s the Gabriel I know and love.” Aeric went for the door, casting a grin over his shoulder. “Purely platonically, of course.”

  “You’re not my type, either, sunshine,” Gabriel rasped back at him.

  He took a step forward and his knees almost buckled. The charmed iron on his skin had affected him badly.

  “Whoa, big guy,” said Ronan, catching and supporting him on one side while Bran got the other side.

  He speared Ronan with his gaze. “You and Bella are sworn to secrecy with the knowledge I am Lord of the Wild Hunt and these fae are my host. Got it?”

  Ronan nodded once tersely. “Now let’s get out of here before they realize what’s going on.”

  They all followed Aeric and Aelfdane out of the cell. The hallway was empty save for one fallen guard dressed in the gleaming silver and black armor of the Shadow Guard. Whether the man was dead or unconscious, Gabriel wasn’t sure. They made their way down the corridor, finding more prone and bloody bodies. Aeric and the others had clearly made quick and clean work of them, but it was hardly surprising. The lot of them had a host of magickal defenses—and offenses—to use.

  They managed to make their way out of the corridor and past the main doors of the prison before the alarm triggered. The alarm was silent, but magickal. It shivered through the molecules of their bodies as they ran down the hallway. Just as they turned a corner, additional guards spilled into the corridor, yelling and drawing their swords.

  They turned back, only to see a horde of goblins rounding the opposite corner.

  “Oh, fuck, we’re trapped.” Aeric had a firm hold on the obvious.

  Gabriel listed to the side, caught himself against the wall, and cursed out loud in English and Old Maejian both. His fingers itched for a weapon. “We fight through them. It’s our only chance.”

  And then they had no choice.

  Gabriel targeted one of the Shadow Guard right off, coveting both a weapon and an immediate dissolution of the iron sickness. Summoning strength and balance from parts unknown, he rode a sudden adrenaline rush into battle. Grabbing the man’s sword, he leveraged his superior upper-body strength and slammed the man into a nearby wall. Weapon in hand, he turned and met the next comer, as chaos exploded in the middle of the corridor.

  He, his host, Niall, and Ronan fought back to back, battling their way through the ranks of the Shadow Guard and the goblins with a resolve their opponents lacked. That resolve made them stronger. They slashed with their swords, while the mages and Melia all uttered low spells in Old Maejian to make their blades land true and turn the tide of the fight in their favor.

  When the last of the goblins had fallen and the Shadow Guard was long since done for, they ran for the tower stairs, knowing reinforcements were on the way. They went down the spiral stone staircase that would let them out into Piefferburg Square if they followed it all the way.

  Gabriel stopped on a landing, his tortured and magick-muddled thought processes finally clearing up a little. He dropped his bloody sword to the stone floor with a clatter. “No! I can’t leave the Black Tower. Not when Aislinn is still here and alive.”

  Aeric and Bran rounded on him, slack jawed.

  “The whole Shadow Guard is after you,” Melia said in her soft, dulcet voice, bright red hair tangled around her shoulders from their flight, blood marking her cheeks and clothes. “The king will call down the goblin army on your head. You must leave the Black Tower if you want to live to fight another day, Gabriel. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

  “No.” The word echoed up through the stairwell. He swayed against the cold, uneven rock wall and shook his head to try to get rid of the fuzziness. The adrenaline-fueled battle fury that had so recently filled him was waning fast, the iron sickness taking hold once again. “I won’t leave without her.” He paused and shook his head again. “I won’t live without her.”

  Aeric leaned into his face, his dark brown eyes narrowing. “Who are you and what have you done with Gabriel Cionaodh Marcus Mac Braire?”

  “No, he’s right,” Ronan said. “If he leaves the Black Tower he’ll never get back in to help Aislinn, and that’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

  Gabriel blinked at the two Ronans in front of him, trying to get them to merge into one. “Yeah. It’s the only thing that matters.”

  Melia rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I think you’re an idiot, Gabriel. Just for the record.” She turned and headed down the stairs. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?” Gabriel had big plans about rescuing Aislinn, but at the moment he wasn’t sure how many more actual steps he could take without collapsing.

  Aelfdane pulled him away from the wall. “She helped design and construct this tower. Of any of us, she knows best where to go right now.”

  Together they made their way down two more flights. On that landing, Melia touched something on the back of one of the craggy Unseelie statues in an alcove and part of the wall moved in and to the side, revealing a passageway.

  None too soon, either, for above echoed the sound of the guards’ boots on the stairs and shouting.

  Once the wall closed behind them, blackness fisted them in the narrow tunnel. Bran uttered a spell in Old Maejian and light sparked to life around them. They were on a tiny landing with stairs leading up and down. Melia began to climb up and everyone followed. Gabriel hated going in the opposite direction of the dungeons. Every fiber of his body strained to go downward instead of upward.

  Sense won out. He needed to go to ground right now and give himself some time, as little as possible, to regain his strength. Being wrapped in charmed iron for almost two weeks with nearly no food and water had almost killed him. Another couple of days like that and his life would surely have come to an end. He needed to be strong for Aislinn. If he went in now, impulsively, the way his body, heart, and mind were straining to do, all would be lost. He couldn’t count on adrenaline and his willpower driving him any further. Physically, he was tapped out. He would die and so would she.

  For once he had to be smart. For once he was going to have to trust others. He hated that. Even if it was his host with whom he was entrusting Aislinn’s life. He would trust his own life to them, but not Aislinn’s. No one was good enough to be trusted with her life.

  Least of all, him.

  Poor woman, he was all she had.

  His muscles protesting every movement, he swayed now and again against the rough, cold walls on either side of him. Every step up was a battle, but he pushed past the iron sickness lingering in his body and forced himself up the stairs. Once in a while he felt Aelfdane and Aeric shove him forward a little, or brace him from falling.

  Eventually they came to another small landing, this one with a wooden door. Bran’s light revealed intricate spider-webs covering it. Melia pushed it open. With a whine of unoiled hinges and long disuse, the opening revealed a large room with a fireplace, a cot, and some boxes.

  Home, sweet home for the time being.

  Gabriel took one step into the room and collapsed.

  THIRTEEN

  AISLINN shifted restlessly on the slab she lay on, the fabric of her shift rasping against her skin. Charmed iron chains snaked their way over her body, holding her in place.

  It was cold.

  She could feel the chill of this place, wherever she was, right down to the center of her stomach. For the first couple of days all she’d done was shiver. Now she was too weak to shiver. She lacked the energy to do anything at all, not eat, not drink. She didn’t even have enough energy to be terrified like any sane person. And maybe that meant she wasn’t anymore . . . sane, that was.

  In her iron sickness-laced haze all she could do was sleep, wake up, shift a little, and sleep again. Sometimes she heard voices talking low around her. Once in a while, in the distance, she could hear
screaming or moaning. She wasn’t always sure it wasn’t herself screaming and moaning, but a careful analysis had rendered her almost certain the noises came from outside her head. Knowing she was not alone in her misery was an odd comfort. One she didn’t want to examine too closely.

  Thus her prophetic dream was realized.

  There were no grabbing, pulling hands. No silver pool of a place between life and death. Maybe that was still coming. But surely she was going to die in this place, just as her dream had said she would.

  And Gabriel had led her to it.

  The voices around her had yielded a few clues to her predicament. She was in possession of four interesting facts. One, she was actually the Shadow King’s daughter, gotten off her full-blooded Seelie Tuatha Dé mother in an illicit liaison. Two, Gabriel had been planted in the Rose Tower to lure her over to the dark side of her own free will. He’d done his job well. Was he laughing somewhere in the Black Tower now as a result of her demise? Three, the Shadow King meant to kill her. Four, the Shadow King didn’t merely mean to kill her, he meant to obliterate her very soul—dismember it magickally and cast it to the four winds.

  That was the holdup. That was why she wasn’t dead yet.

  Apparently she was, indeed, a powerful necromancer.

  Apparently she was her father’s daughter. The thought caused a burst of bitter laughter to rise in her throat like bile. It burned, made her smile. Then she rolled to the side and dry-heaved onto the slab.

  Being a powerful necromancer would give her the ability to return from the dead and haunt the Shadow King for the rest of his immortal life. A thing that, if she knew how to do it, she most certainly would. That was why he was seeking for magickal ways to obliterate her soul.

  Of course, she didn’t have the first clue how to do anything as a necromancer, most certainly not how to return from the dead and haunt someone. For that matter, before now she’d meant the Shadow King no harm at all. She couldn’t think of the first reason why he would want her dead. Did he think she was a threat to his throne?