The nightmare creatures around us laughed and jeered at Robert’s expense. He stiffened, but said nothing. Based on my hot cheeks, my face had done an ample job of defending his manhood.
“Is it so?” Nicnevin asked. She rose and peered first at Robert, then at me. “It is! You have bedded the frail human wench! My people, my gallowglass has at last found his sword!”
The jeers became a roar, the comments and jibes bandied about at Robert’s expense were enough to make me want to crawl underneath the throne. After enduring a few minutes of that torture, Robert said, “Take me, in place o’ the boy.”
“What?” I demanded, but Robert ignored me while Nicnevin smiled a slow, evil smile.
“Ah, so all is not well between the lovers,” she purred. “Robert, if I agree to your bargain, our relationship will need to be somewhat more complete than it was before.”
“No!” I stood between them, my back to Nicnevin as I faced Robert. “What are you doing? You’re finally free of her!”
“Yes, but at what cost?” Robert’s pale blue eyes had darkened; he had long ago resigned himself to his fate. “I am long since damned. Young Christopher still has his life spread out afore him. I canna leave him to such a fate wi’ the likes o’ her.” Yeah, that made sense, but my life had stopped making sense a while ago.
“Don’t leave me,” I said, hot tears slipping down my cheeks. Robert caught my tears with his thumb.
“Would ye trade me for your brother?” he asked.
“There is another way,” I insisted. “There is always another way.” I wanted them both, my lover and my brother, well and hale, as Robert would say. “There has to be.” Robert murmured something, but I didn’t pay it any mind, my gaze having landed my reflection on his silver collar. A plan formed in my mind, and I spun to face Nicnevin. “I want Robert’s soul back.”
Nicnevin arched a perfect red eyebrow, then she jerked her arm. The short silver chain that had been innocently dangling from Robert’s collar lengthened by inches and then feet until the end was coiled around Nicnevin’s arm, and she dragged him, by his neck. He landed on his knees before the dais. “You dare challenge me for my gallowglass, child?”
I steeled myself, trying not to betray how much the sight of Robert splayed at her feet disturbed me. “Yes. And, when I win, I will get both Robert and Chris.”
She laughed, a beautiful sound that penetrated my heart and made it sing. I dropped to my knees and stared up at Nicnevin, the desire to serve her so strong I could taste it. Then she sneered, revealing the layer of tarnish upon her beauty.
“Robert and Chris,” I said as I struggled to my feet. “Both of them. Say it.”
“You will not be victorious, so I accept your terms,” Nicnevin declared, then she pranced up the steps to her throne, and sat upon it with all the pomp of a little girl hosting a tea party. She shifted on her throne, and a puff of fetid dust escaped the tired velvet cushion. “But let me ask you this, child, how well do you know our Robert?”
“My Robert,” I corrected. “And well enough.”
“So you know of the many fell deeds, the terrible acts, the horrible things he has done?” Nicnevin pressed. “For if you are to reclaim his soul, you will need to experience all of those acts. Here. Now.”
I glanced at Robert, huddled at Nicnevin’s feet, my stalwart man that had gone white as a sheet. “What do you mean, here and now?” I demanded.
“He will transform from one creature to the next, each more terrible than the last,” Nicnevin explained. “Each creature will represent an aspect of his past deeds.”
That didn’t sound so unbearable. “And? What am I supposed to do?”
“You must hold on to him throughout each and every transformation,” Nicnevin continued. “If you relinquish your hold, if only for a moment, you will lose both your gallowglass and your brother.”
“Love, do no’ do this,” Robert implored. “You are young, with all the goodness o’ life yet to be experienced. Leave me here, live your life, and move on from this madness.”
“I… I can’t.” I approached him where he crouched on the dais’s steps and put my arms around his neck, staring into his icy blue eyes as I ruffled my fingers through his hair. “I love you.”
Robert’s eyes widened, then he pressed his forehead against mine. “Karina, me love, ye are more dear to me than I can e’er put into words. I love ye, so much so that me heart may burst.” He kissed my forehead. “Forgive me, me dearest love, for the things I have done.”
“Forgiven. All of it.” I glanced up at Nicnevin, full of unearned courage. With Robert by my side, I felt like I could accomplish anything. “Well? How do we do this?”
“As a token of my endless generosity, I will let you pick the first creature,” she declared. “What will it be, foul girl: snake, newt, lion, or stag?”
“Um, newt,” I said, mostly because newts were small, and, I imagined, easy to hold, and therefore a good animal to begin with. And there was the fact that I had no idea how I’d hold on to the other three.
Nicnevin’s face broke into a grin; maybe a newt hadn’t been the wisest choice. The Seelie Queen produced an hourglass the length of her arm, and said, “When I turn this glass over, the transformations will begin. They will continue until the last grain of sand has fallen.”
“How long will it take for the hourglass to revert to a zero state?” I asked. I was trying to rattle her with my science speak. It didn’t work.
“As long as it takes,” she purred.
I nodded, and turned back to Robert. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him, deeply, hungrily. God only knew if I’d ever get to kiss him again. Then there was fire in my mouth, and I screamed.
Chapter Thirty Six
Karina
When Nicnevin had listed the animals Robert would transform into—snake, newt, lion and stag—I’d assumed that by newt she had meant a small lizard, like the little orange critters I used to find under large-ish stones and rotting logs when I was away at summer camp. My fellow campers and I would carefully scoop them up, giggling as their tiny, cool bodies skittered across our hands.
Robert had not transformed into one of these tiny, harmless creatures. The man that had so tenderly made love to me a few hours ago had become a fire breathing newt, more akin to a mythical dragon than a salamander, and he was breathing fire down my throat.
I screamed again, but no sound emerged. My throat was already charred, my vocal chords having long since turned to ash and flaked away. Robert’s hands became claws and his talons ripped into my flesh as he struggled against me. Frantic, I tried breaking our kiss, my fingers slipping across the smooth scales of his back. My hand caught on the bony ridge that followed his spine an instant before I lost my grip on him.
I would not lose him.
I refused to lose him.
He was mine, goddammit.
Newt-Robert took his mouth from mine and craned his neck, and an icy blue eye looked down into mine. Robert’s eye. Suddenly, I realized that this was all an illusion, just another one of Nicnevin’s games. My throat wasn’t a column of ash, it was flesh and blood and bone, and Robert didn’t have claws that were slowly shredding my back. He had normal hands with normal fingers, the same fingers that had caressed me so many times before, that would caress me so many times again. We were okay, the two of us were truly okay. Having figured out her trick, I smiled.
Then Robert became a snake.
Have I mentioned that I hate snakes?
Robert lengthened until he was ten or twelve feet from his snout to the tip of his tail, and as big around as my thigh. His smooth, muscular, slippery body kept twisting away from me, and I could hardly hold him. Just as I gripped him securely behind his head, one of Nicnevin’s creatures threw some sort of liquid onto us and Robert almost slid out of my arms.
“Not fair!” I shrieked, glaring at Nicnevin. The Seelie Queen was sitting sideways on her throne, her feet dangling over the armrest.
“All is fair in my court,” Nicnevin drawled. “Or unfair, depending upon your view of things.”
I wrapped my arms and legs around snake, which really only served to make snake-Robert mad. His head reared up, jaws wide and fangs extended. Robert was going to bite me.
If he bit me, his teeth would be sunken into my flesh, and I’d have an easier time holding on to him.
I rolled, wrapping the snake’s length around my torso, clutching him behind his head. Furious, Robert reared up and buried his fangs into the curve where my shoulder met my neck. The venom burned with the heat of a thousand fires as it entered my bloodstream, setting my nervous system on fire. The edges of my vision went black and spotty, and I wondered if that venom would be the end of me. I heard Nicnevin laugh, and the snake became a stag.
My hands, which had been clasped around the snake’s body, now clutched the stag’s foreleg. Stag-Robert kicked, so I grabbed handfuls of his short, wiry fur, pulling my way almost to his belly. Then he bucked, trying to fling me forward; I wondered if he meant to impale me with his antlers. I grabbed his foreleg above the knee, pulling him off balance and down to the dusty floor. Once he was down, I scrambled onto his back, and grabbed him by the antlers.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I panted. “I’m not leaving this place without you.”
The stag screamed as I pulled his head back, then it became a roar. Just as I was wishing that stags had easy to hold manes like horses, the antlers dissolved in my hands, and the bony tissue transformed into a mane, albeit a lion’s. The big cat tossed his head, and I fell forward over his shoulders, but I retained my hold on his mane. I grabbed his paw, trying to still him, only to have lion-Robert swipe at me with the other.
“Robert, why are you fighting me?” I pleaded. “Can’t you just hold still?”
“He is reliving the fell deeds of his past,” Nicnevin offered, as if I hadn’t already known that. “I imagine that those memories are quite upsetting.”
Lion-Robert swiped again, scoring my cheek with his claws. I cried out, but I didn’t loosen my grip. He struck me again, this time dragging his claws across my back. Frustrated, I smacked his nose. That was not the smartest thing to do to a lion. Robert bit my shoulder, snarling and tearing the flesh from my bones.
“Bite me all you want, you bastard,” I growled. “I’m gonna remember this.”
Then, he was gone.
I blinked, wondering if I’d somehow failed, when I opened my hand. In it was an ordinary lump of coal.
Was Robert the coal?
Nicnevin hadn’t mentioned coal. But then, she’s a liar.
Does this mean I’ve won?
No, it didn’t. Before my eyes, the coal began to glow red hot.
I screamed, the coal’s heat being even hotter than that of the newt’s, the burning pain worse than the snake’s venom or the lion’s claws, but I didn’t let go. I fell to my knees and doubled over, clutching the coal to my breast.
“Not letting go, not letting go,” I murmured. “Robert, I’m not letting go of you.” I fell to my side, the intense heat sapping my strength. I closed my eyes, not remotely resigned to my fate but unable to alter it. Even though I could hardly think for the agony, one coherent thought formed in my mind: Nicnevin had won.
I’d lost both Robert and my brother. I was alone.
“Enough!”
My eyes tracked the voice, and I saw a man striding toward me and my lump of superheated coal. He was tall and lean, with a fall of dark hair that swept across his shoulders, and deep green eyes. He wore a long leather cape with no shirt beneath, a gold torque, brown leather leggings, and an antlered headdress. Even though I’d never seen him before, I knew that he was the Seelie King, Fionnlagh himself.
“Nicnevin, the girl has proven herself many times over,” Fionnlagh boomed. “Cease your petty games and grant the mortals their freedom.”
“But I saw him first,” Nicnevin pouted.
“You forget who holds the true power here.” Fionnlagh turned to me, and held out a silver chalice filled some sort of shimmery liquid that reminded me of mercury. “Here, child, pour this onto the coal.”
“I can’t let go,” I said around gritted teeth; the coal was so hot I was about to pass out from the pain. “If I let go, I’ll lose him and my brother.”
Fionnlagh smiled. “Perhaps I shall assist you in your trial.” The Seelie King tipped the chalice forward, the cool liquid hissing as it made contact with the red coal and my blackened flesh. Then, the coal vanished from my hands.
“You tricked me!” I shouted at Fionnlagh. My pain was gone, just as Robert was, and I rose onto my knees. “He’s gone! After all we went through, he’s gone!”
“Turn around, girl,” the Seelie King ordered.
I did as Fionnlagh said, and looked over my shoulder. There was a naked man lying on the floor behind me, his skin covered in ashes and wounds; some of the wounds were burns, some were punctures, and yet others were terrible slices in his flesh. Most notably, there was a length of snakeskin wound around his ankle.
“Robert,” I whispered. I crawled to him, and cupped his face in my palms. “Robert, wake up. Please, wake up. Wake up for me.”
Robert didn’t move for such a long time, so long that I feared he was gone. Then he blinked, his icy blue eyes the most welcome sight I’d ever seen. After a moment he coughed, and blinked some more. I waited as he rolled onto his side and spat. “Did we win?” he croaked, rolling back to face me.
I moved to lay my body alongside his and stroked my fingertips along his neck, which was now free of the silver collar that had bound him to this terrible place. “We did.”
He smiled. “If anyone could best Nicnevin at her worst, o’ course ‘twould be ye, Karina me love.”
I grinned. “You know it.”
I stood, helping Robert to his feet. I looked toward the dais, and saw that Chris was awake and sitting up, blinking as he took in the scene before him. His eyes settled on me and Robert, his gaze darting between my wounds and Robert’s nakedness.
“What,” Chris began, then his gaze moved around the room, ultimately settling on the creature that had called herself Olivia. “And now, I shall believe in unicorns,” he muttered. Turning his gaze back to Robert and me, he asked, “Is this hell?”
“Near enough,” Robert replied. He turned, and gave his full attention to the Seelie King. “My lord, on behalf of meself and my beloved, and my beloved’s brother, I thank ye for your most generous boon.”
“Naught but a trifle,” Fionnlagh demurred. “You have served Elphame well these last three centuries, Robert of Aberfoyle. The least I could do was end your beloved’s torment.”
Robert nodded, then asked, “What is the price of your assistance, my lord?”
“You will remain a gallowglass,” Fionnlagh replied, “my gallowglass. Should I have need of your services, I will summon you.”
“Aye, and I shall serve ye as ye see fit, my lord,” Robert replied. As he spoke, the padded leather armor and chain mail that Robert had been wearing when I’d freed him from the Minister’s Pine atop Doon Hill materialized around him, along with his claymore and shield. “Aught else I must do?”
“Yes. Stay away from Nicnevin. Far, far away.” Fionnlagh turned, and speared Nicnevin with his cold gaze. “I have grown weary of your dalliances with mortal men. Stray from my bed no longer, wife.”
Nicnevin smiled sweetly, deadly. “I will remain as true to you as you are to me, husband.”
While the fairy royalty glared at each other, Chris got to his feet and joined Robert and I. “I think now is a good time for us to be going,” he said. He spared a last, longing look at Olivia, then he turned away.
“I could no’ agree more,” Robert said. He took my hand, and turned his back on the unhappily married pair and the rest of the fairy court. “Karina me love, I shall take ye away from this place.”
I laced my fingers with Robert’s, then I hooked my other arm around Chr
is’s elbow as we left the Seelie Court. God willing, we’d never see it again.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Karina
As it turned out, the Seelie King’s assistance hadn’t ended with the breaking of Nicnevin’s curse.
When the three of us finally returned to the cottage, we were greeted by a pile of paperwork heaped upon the kitchen table. First and foremost, there was a Scottish birth certificate for Robert, which listed him as only thirty years old, two years younger than Chris. Next to the birth certificate was a US passport, citizenship papers for both the US and the UK, and various other credentials, including diplomas from St. Andrews and the University of Edinburgh. Just as he had been in his first mortal life Robert was once again a scholar, though this time around he had doctorates in literature and philology, but not divinity. I suppose it would have been difficult to explain to my colleagues that my boyfriend was also a preacher.
Fionnlagh’s assistance extended beyond Robert’s modern identity. Lying next to Robert’s diplomas was a letter from Chris’s lawyer, advising him that Olivia hadn’t appeared at the any of the scheduled hearings regarding her plagiarism charges. As a result of her many absences, and her being utterly unreachable by all other means, the judge had thrown the suit out of court. There was also a letter from Chris’s publisher, expressing their sincere happiness that the suit was over, and encouraging him to cash the advance payment for his next book as soon as was convenient for him. Would an early summer publication be agreeable?
“This is amazing,” I mumbled, staring at the documents before us. “We can actually go on with our lives now. It’s like he fixed everything.”
“He made reparations,” Chris murmured, his eyes scanning the letter from his publisher. He put it down and retrieved another document from the heap on the table. “Reparations for his wife’s misdeeds.”
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