by Conn, Claudy
“Ah, just the sort of place I have always thought it would be wonderful to explore,” she said lightly.
I laughed. “Hmm … I go there a lot.”
She went to the sofa at her back, sat down with a sigh, and patted a place beside herself. “Do sit with me.”
I smiled and did what she asked.
“You are working on something in your head. I feel it,” she said with a nod of her own.
“I am.” I sighed and shrugged. “Don’t know just how to manage though.”
“Quietly, my dear,” she said, patting my hand. “You are not just part of the prophecy. You are the prophecy, as I think you have already been told. Without you, even your queen’s sacrifice will be for nothing.”
“Great … just great,” I said, aware that I had been saying that a whole lot lately. I bit my bottom lip. No, chewed my bottom lip would be a better description.
“You will need the quiet of another dimension to show you what you need to do, but you will be alone and without help. Do you think you can manage?”
“How do you know all this?”
“I have certain abilities, and I believe Rysdale, for all his amazing might, will not be able to break through and find the queen. She does not wish it. However, there is a way that you can find her.”
“How?”
“As I said, quietly. No one must know … for your Danté will not let you go alone, and this time, you must.”
“Tell me,” I said on a hushed note.
She did, and I sank back against the cushion of the sofa and took a long drag of air. This was going to be tricky—really tricky.
* * *
And then all hell broke loose again. Every single time I thought we could take a breather—uh, uh, nope. Chaos tried to reign.
Chancemont arrived and said Danté and I were needed immediately in Inverness, where his father was fighting back a pack of Dark Fae that were killing people with their screaming wails. They were breaking the eardrums of humans and then feeding on them.
We were on it!
We fought with Chance, his father (such a hunk), and their band of hunky Milesians.
We were able to block the sound this pack of uglies made, and we formed a circle around them as we fought. There weren’t as many of the monsters as there had been just awhile ago in Dublin, but these were even more deadly to humans, as they didn’t have to be in close proximity to kill. So our main goal was to keep them contained within the ring we had formed around them.
I looked up and saw Pestale, his arms folded across his naked chest. He pointed a finger at me and gave me a grin that worried me just a bit. He had something up his sleeve. Again I wondered, Is he distracting us from the main site of entry?
And then, when we thought we had it under control and were just finishing up, Lana arrived and stood next to me, her sword unsheathed and ready to help.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her, just a bit annoyed. She shouldn’t have been breathing the same air as Pestale. It was just far too dangerous, and I didn’t want to see her hurt.
“Don’t like Tir, Z, and the Seelie Fae don’t like me. They made it obvious, and some of Trevor’s friends made me very uncomfortable.”
I shook my head, as there wasn’t much I could say about that right now. Other matters needed attention. But I told her, “Don’t let stuff like that bother you.”
“But it does, Z … Trevor is a Royal Fae—and we … well, they … his friends, don’t approve.”
“Who cares?” I told her. “You need to take it slow anyway and just have fun.”
Trevor shifted in and touched her hand. “Lana.”
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped at him and shifted away.
That’s when the sky caved in and the world splintered right before my eyes. It happened all so fast, and yet it felt like slow motion, and I was helpless to stop it. I went into shock for a moment as I saw Pestale’s arm reach around her. Even as I reached out and screamed, he took her death sword away from her. He had shifted in like the demon killer he was before we knew what was happening, and he had Lana!
I felt my heart stop beating as I screamed for Chance. I thought I couldn’t breathe as I stepped forward and shouted, “Pestale—touch her, and you will live to regret it!”
“Touch her? Oh, I am going to do more than touch her,” he said, and they shifted to the top of a nearby brick building.
I didn’t hesitate. I shifted onto the building with them. Trevor was there beside me; we tried to circle, but Pestale’s two brothers arrived and engaged us in battle.
Chance still didn’t know—he couldn’t know, or he would have been there.
Danté was with Chance fighting back to back. They didn’t know. I yelled into Danté’s head …
And before they could shift to us, while we tried to get through the two Dark Royals waving their death swords at us, Pestale put her own death sword to Lana’s throat and called on a heart-stopping sound, “Chancemont—watch your sister die …”
Chance and Danté had just shifted in and had taken a helpless step forward, but it was too late. Two horrible words: too late. We stood on the rooftop, so close but helpless to stop him as Pestale held Lana’s life in his hands.
“One movement, and she is dead,” Pestale threatened.
The world stopped as I watched him carelessly shrug. He laughed out loud—then, without warning, he slit Lana’s throat from ear to ear. The atmosphere filled with the sound of our sobs … all of us crying “Nooo” as he dropped her, bleeding and dead, to the rooftop floor.
Pestale was still laughing as he hovered a few feet off the rooftop and watched as poor Chance went onto his knees beside Lana, cradling her as her blood flowed over his leather pants and covered his arms and hands.
He looked up at Pestale still hovering with his brothers beside him as they reveled in the vengeance they had taken. Chance screamed, his voice laced with agony and grief, “I shall find you wherever you go, Pestale. There is nowhere you can hide, and I will destroy you—slowly, so that you feel the air leave your body and beg for relief!” It was a howl that came from his heart and carried on the wind.
His father heard and arrived to drop down to his only daughter. I was sure my heart had broken into more pieces than I would ever be able to recover.
War accomplishes nothing. Vengeance creates the need for more—it takes and takes and gives nothing …
But I understood its need. I had that need for vengeance, justice if you will, for my father, so I understood. And war, we always find good reasons for war. Now, for example, we had no choice: we were saving the world from destruction. There are always good reasons—aren’t there?
In that moment, I only knew the pain all of this had brought and imagined the pain that both Chance and his father felt. She had been immortal—they had never envisioned her death …
And now the bubbling young woman with her maturity ahead was gone. I felt an awful anger well up inside me and grow. It had to stop—all this killing had to stop!
* * *
And in the midst of the feelings battering my mind, bam—Maxine paid a visit with a message she sent on the link we had decided to share. And what she told me altered the plans I had made with Charm and sent me into another frenzy.
Charm and I had assumed I was the prophecy and I alone must try and bring about the change we needed, but that wasn’t so. Queen Mab had told me—and why hadn’t I really listened?—that my mom was key.
I had to go off without Danté. He couldn’t know what I was about to do because he would stop me. He would not allow me to put my life in so much danger, but that was just what I had to do, which meant I would be breaking my promise to him …
When Danté was busy with Chance and his father, tending to Lana’s body—oh, it hurt, but I could not think about it—I whispered good-bye to him. He looked up, and I shifted off, concealing my scent so he could not track me to the dimension I immediately traveled to.
I looked aro
und at the Realm so much like our own had it not been for the scarcity of colors—for indeed, everything was dipped in shades of green and yellow. Monlow. I had attained Monlow’s direction through Maxine’s message. She had a vision, and I was following that vision. The only trouble was she saw me lifeless in the end.
No matter; I had to try to do something to save our queen so she could save the world. I knew now that was my part in the prophecy.
There were other colors on Monlow, but they were in contrast, scarcely notable, and the pale green sky held two yellow moons.
I was far enough away from where Gaiscioch held the queen and out of range of his Danu dust trap, although I had enacted a shield of my own in hopes it might help against the poisonous dust.
I closed my eyes and began digging through the atmosphere in slow degrees in search of my mother. Yes, my mother.
If I didn’t get through to her, then all would be lost.
I imagined a drill bit, a wide drill bit, and I used it to bore through the layers of atmosphere until I found Mom lying on her settee. I aimed that drill bit at her head.
ZZZZZZ. I felt my mother resist and swat at me, and I yelled, Mom, it’s me … Mom! I was inside her mind, and I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Mom! Help! I need you!”
“What …? Radzia … what is it, baby?”
“Queen Mab is secreted away, and I can’t find her without your help. We’re in trouble—I am in trouble. My friends are being killed right in front of my eyes. I need you, Mom.”
“Oh my love,” she said on a hushed note.
I hurried on while I had her attention. “Can you help me, Mom, to connect with Queen Mab? I need her help to get me in safely to Queen Aaibhe—long story. Just, can you help me?”
“I can try …”
“Mom, you know you can do it. You and Queen Mab have had a connection for years … ever since you left Daoine to live with Dad.”
“Oh, baby … yes, of course, but …” She hesitated. “It means I have to leave your father …”
“Yes, to save me, Mom … to save the queen, to help us here in the real world, okay?”
“Of course,” she said at once. “Join with me and think of Mab as you last saw her, and we will go to her together.”
It took but a moment, and we were with Mab in her mind, looking out from her eyes. She knew at once what we needed—no explanations necessary.
“We will make a magic box—a new portal that will penetrate the Golden Net, two queens and two Royals,” Mab said softly, and then she added as an afterthought, “Don’t lose the connection with your mother, Radzia.”
“I won’t let go. Mom, don’t let go of me.”
“Never, darling, never.”
“You knew this all along, didn’t you?” I asked Queen Mab. “You knew this moment was coming.”
“In a way … but I wasn’t sure until just now when you and your mother created a link to me. Now, hurry—to Aaibhe. Radzia, follow my lead.”
Then a dear and beloved voice broke through to us—I have often said Aaibhe’s powers are formidable. She said, “Stop … you must not try and save me.”
“Not just doing that,” I answered before anyone else had a chance. “Trying to save the world, and now we have both Pestale and his remaining two brothers coming at us at the same time as Gaiscioch. My queen … you are the only one that can close the largest of the portals … you and Queen Mab together.”
“Yes, perhaps, but first I must destroy Gais.”
And then we heard him, the hateful traitor who had started all this. His beautiful voice made me sick as he said, “And how do you propose to do that, Aaibhe? How do you think you can destroy me, sitting there in you golden cell, talking to yourself?”
We knew he had not heard us. It was an amazing feat that Aaibhe had heard us. We couldn’t see him, but we imagined him there with Aaibhe, and I wanted to stick my death sword through his brain.
“I don’t really know. I suppose I was simply talking to myself,” Aaibhe said out loud. She had reached through time and space to say us nay and must have spoken the words as well.
I fixed on her coordinates, and allow me to explain, we four formed a square of power. It was a bright, straight light between our four corners, each one of us representing one of the four points, and it was on the wave of that power that I entered Queen Aaibhe’s cell without further adieu.
* * *
I heard my sweet Z whisper good-bye and turned to find she had already shifted away. Even so, I called out to her, as I knew she would hear me. “Z—enfant!”
She didn’t answer, and I felt a sudden desperation. I felt a certain fear that grew and blew up inside my mind as it took over all conscious thought.
My world had just left me; I knew the only reason she had gone off alone and hid her tracks from me was because she knew she would be in the worst possible danger.
She was my world—my life—and I had somehow allowed her to slip off to a precipice that was in eminent danger of collapse. How had it happened? Why hadn’t I seen that she was planning something?
She had set herself up to take on a mission alone, and it was bound to get her killed. I couldn’t allow it. Wasn’t that just like her—damnation! Damn it all to bloody hell! By Danu where was she—had she actually somehow located the Queen? But how?
I had taught her too well how to disguise her scent, and in addition to that she had been acquiring Daoine skills these last few weeks. She was a Daoine princess, and the power that had always been hers had burst into bloom, giving her all she needed to hide her trail from me.
I couldn’t believe it. I was a Royal, Danté of Lugh, and I was helpless to follow the most important thing in all the universe—my only beloved.
And then clear thought began to make its way through my disoriented mind. Where had she gone? To the queen. I had to follow—but how? The wizard either couldn’t or wouldn’t help me while he thought the queen wished otherwise, so I had to find help elsewhere. I had to get through …
I shifted to Daoine just outside her mother’s bedroom chamber, where I was blocked by several female attendants all wagging their fingers and denying me entrance to the only person who could help me find my Z!
* * *
I arrived inside Queen Aaibhe’s cell, my sword firmly grasped and ready to plunge into Gais’s body!
He must have felt the parting of the atmosphere as I arrived from Daoine, for he shifted out of range. Still, I charged at him, purposely allowing him to think the human—the weakness of the human that he knew I was—could be overcome. He sneered at me and growled, “You can’t save her.”
“No? We’ll see,” I said on a low note. Hearing the primal threat in my voice, I was momentarily impressed with myself.
“Stop!” commanded my queen. “Radzia MacDaun …”
“Sorry, my Queen, want to follow your orders, but this time, this thing that calls himself a Seelie Fae is going down.” Although I allowed him to see me thrust, before I completed the movement I shifted in behind him and nearly, by damn, nearly caught him. At the last moment he realized and jumped out of the way and then shifted (or tried) to shift behind me. I was, however, ready for him, and I slashed through the air, but once again he jumped out of the way.
This time he was behind my queen, with the death sword to her neck.
She clucked her tongue and would not be held hostage. She vanished and emerged beside me to whisper, “My sweet Princess, there is no need for all of this. Did you think I was being held against my will? Did you think it was an accident that I was not guarded at the portal?”
It dawned on me. She had set a trap for Gaiscioch. His taking her captive had been part of her plan, and I had royally messed up. She saw both the understanding and dismay in my eyes and gently chucked my chin. “No matter—perhaps it was never I who was supposed to finish him. After all … you are key in the prophecy.”
However, Gais wasn’t concerned with prophecies. He moved in a frenzy and bellowed so
that his voice seemed to reverberate against the prison walls. “Do you mean the net never held you …?”
“You see, Gais, it belonged to the Dark King, and long ago he removed its power to enslave a queen,” she said softly. I could tell from the look on her face she wanted to taunt him.
“All this while you could have escaped, Aaibhe … but you didn’t. You prolonged your captivity to be with me.”
“To be with you?” she snapped back at him in high temper. “I loathed every moment I have been with you, but I needed to keep you here and detain you from opening the largest of your portals.”
“No—I don’t believe that. You still care for me … you will care for me …”
He sounded as though he had gone over the edge, and I thought it would be a good time to use my sword. I took the opportunity and thrust forward at him, but he was so incredibly quick and maneuvered away, even as he went towards the queen.
“Care for you?” Aaibhe’s head was held high, and her brilliant eyes looked dark and full with sadness. “I despise you and all that you are. You murdered my Conall. You have turned on your race and lead abominations onto the earth, and, Gais … if I were not a queen, I would kill you now with my own hands … as you know I can.”
“Well, I’m not a queen,” I said and dove at him again while his attention was, I thought, totally on the queen.
He turned on me with all the hate and bitterness he felt in that moment and nearly got close enough to knick me. Luckily, I’m agile; I bent backwards from the waist up and then shifted.
He knew exactly where I would step out and was there waiting. He was a skilled warrior, fast and intuitive. I raised my sword, and he blocked it with his own.
The resulting vibrations shook the entire room, and the sound the two swords made when they met made me want to put my hands over my ears.
There is nothing like the sound of two death swords when they clang in battle. I had heard the stories, but never imagined …
It is like time exploding against itself in a wave of vociferous agony. Death swords have a ‘life’ of their own, and when they meet in battle, it is brother against brother. They are loyal, must be loyal to their bonded owner, but they physically suffer when pitted against one another blade to blade.
