“Henry?”
Faye shook her head. “I don’t know. We haven’t been able to get inside the house since they broke through your defenses. Ginuog is still on the roof with Slaine trying to pick them off, but most of the other creatures retreated to the woods. The house is surrounded and none of the golem horde found a way inside yet, but nobody’s coming out of that fortress either.” Wrapping her arms around the slip of a ball gown, now torn in several places, she focused hard on the twitch of Amie’s fingers atop the lace. “We’re still hoping we’ll find Jo and James…”
“What happened?” Amie quickly interrupted.
Faye’s face hardened. “We were almost at the Borderlands when they attacked us. That’s how we knew the Exiled factions were planning something. Ben said he’d never seen so many golem and Unseelie in one place before. Jo wanted to pierce their defenses so we could warn you. But they knew we were coming.”
This was the end of her story and Amie knew her oldest friend feared if she said more, she wouldn’t be able to hold her emotions back anymore. “So why do you think they’d be there?”
Faye smiled fondly. “The Unseelie aren’t easy to get along with. There are a lot of factions. Just so happens our parents belong to one who believes in atoning for our crimes against the Vale. Our guild was formed to prepare for the fight we knew would come. We were picked for you for a reason, Amie. Jo and I are the best there is and I know my sister. She’ll blend in with them if she has to. I’d bet my guild money she’s out there trying to get in.”
“And James probably has a crap load of weapons,” Amie added with a grin.
“That’s right! If Ben spots them first he agreed to bring them here. We’re set to get you out of the Borderlands, as far and fast as possible, if you want.”
“I’m going to fight, Faye. You know that,” Amie deadpanned.
“I know.” She sighed and nodded. “Did you know you’ve been gone for seven years on the outside and you were declared dead?”
Okay, I was wrong…this tops the bill.
“Dead, for seven years?”
Faye grinned like it was the best news in the world. “Yeah, they had a ceremony for you and everything. Course us and the folks knew better. We knew how time worked on the other side. It almost took us that long to find out the truth anyway.”
Amie leaned back against the headboard, shut her eyes and rubbed her temples. “This is too unreal.”
“Yeah, after the funeral and everything, your agent asked another author to finish the last chapter for your book.” This time Faye had the decency to look sheepish.
“They what? Who did they get?”
“Some chick named Melissa Wright. Don’t look at me. It’s not our fault you weren’t smart enough to make a will.”
“Well it’s not like I planned on being dead at twenty-seven. How did she end it, anyway?” Amie asked, groaning through the hands she had hung her face in.
“We brought a copy with us so you can read the ending yourself. Figured you’d want one. You should know it became a bestseller in just a week. People are still raving about it.”
Hands falling into her lap with a light thud, Amie stared. “Are you kidding me? That piece of crap trash?”
“I know! And it was real good by the way. I know you don’t believe it but you always had so much talent.”
Of course I don’t get famous till I’m dead! Like Edgar freaking Poe!
“Hope y’all have been cashing in on my success,” Amie finally said, coming to terms with the madness of her situation.
“We signed the royalties off to Mom and Dad. We figured they’d be able to build up our resources, you know, for the return and everything. They’ve been meaning to recruit more from outside factions. Not all of us are out to kill you, Amie.”
Amie shrugged. “Well, isn’t that the icing on the cake? Oh, by the way, Amie, you’re dead so don’t bother coming back.”
“Would you want to go back?”
She was so surprised by the Unseelie’s question that it was some time before she could reply. “No. I’m way too brainwashed for that.” And somehow they both found the time to laugh, not caring who heard them downstairs, while in her mind Amie began forming a plan.
Chapter 45
Shades of Gray
“Are you sure we aren’t going to get attacked by vampire bats or anything?” Faye hissed in the burgeoning darkness of the caves. Amie pushed the range of the glowing orb held aloft in her palm for more light.
Exasperated with the most ridiculous of Faye’s questions, Amie gestured widely with her free arm to the tunnel ahead. “Look, I don’t know what we may be about to face, but Dearg told me I only needed to say his name and he’d find me.”
“You really like him, don’t you?” Faye said with a smirk.
“Doesn’t matter right now, Faye. Now look, we have to focus. If we’re going to break the curse and wake the dragons, we’re going to need his help. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and the trail is faint.”
“What trail?” Faye hung onto Amie’s arm, squinting for a better glance at the cave floor ahead.
“You can’t see it. It’s like this gold dust stuff.”
Faye gasped, “Dragon dust! Amie, he like, actually shed his skin for you?”
Amie was uneasy with the idea of Dearg shedding his skin and wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. The mood changed after this however as the gravity of what lay ahead weighed heavily on them.
“What is it?” Tension thrummed to life in Amie’s limbs, escaped with her words much as she tried to hide it. The form-fitting kick-arse outfit Dameri had lent to her wasn’t helping relax her either. Each of them had donned what Faye called their battle gear. As the only clothing Amie had been allowed to wear thus far was princess clothes, her mother had had to lend a hand once more.
For some reason, she thought about the scene they had left no more than an hour ago. Arthur had wrapped Amie in his arms before she could react and cried over her, saying, “It’s happening all over again, magpie.”
Dameri did her best to soothe his fears and explain what truly was happening at the great house, and then eyed Amie over his shoulder. Her look promised they would learn how to be a family once again, even if Amie could remember nothing before her childhood but echoes in dreams. Amie looked back at the only remaining one of her three best friends and realized this was her family too, in some ways more than her blood had ever been.
As they came to the underground river and the pool glowing with mysterious fish and water sprites, they stopped for a quick breather and taste of the waters.
“This isn’t going to make me sick, is it?” Amie belatedly commented.
Faye laughed, suddenly the vivacious human doctor again, “Of course not. You’re half Seelie.” Amie turned a curious eye on her friend. Ever since they surprised her in the field and broke the truth to her, there was still so many questions unanswered, things unsaid. Even now, as Amie’s skin gleamed with a burning pearly sheen, she was amazed how different Faye looked. Her bronze skin smoldered like smoking embers and her black hair stood almost naturally in those impossible spikes.
Are those…feathers? Crap, she’s totally the chaos chick isn’t she? Makes so much more sense now.
Faye caught her stare while inspecting her arsenal and offered a knowing slanted grin. “See something you like?”
Amie was on the cusp of retaliating when something occurred they had not been expecting.
A gust of wind escaped from the tunnel ahead and blasted over them like a wet hot breath, and a strangled, beastly, thunder-like roar followed it. Rocks shifted and cracked around them, settled back into place and emanated a fine golden dust over the two Sidhe.
Faye had already pulled two sleek knives from her belt and crouched low. Amie’s incandescent sphere now vibrated with a threatening hum. She knew she must be stronger than fear. Rather than allow her last remaining guardian to fight for her, she had every intention of holding her own. S
o she opened that door in her mind, the one holding back the powers in her father’s ring, and let her inhuman side take over.
With the whispers of a hundred memories lingering in the ancient stone, Amie led them confidently forward. Into the darkness they filed together, Amie’s eyes glued to the trail her killer had left behind. Then Faye grasped her so quickly Amie teetered on the tips of her boots before crashing back into her friend. When she twisted her neck, Faye’s dagger was held to her lips, her teeth sharp and bared in a muffled hiss.
For a long moment, silence returned to the cave, but then the pile of rocks ahead of them shifted and groaned deeply. Amie gasped, sparing a look for Faye before she stepped closer.
“What are you doing?” Faye hissed against her ear, jerking her back.
“It’s okay,” Amie assured her, though honestly, she had no clue if the beast was going to eat or kiss her. The closer they tread, the less threatening the dragon seemed. And there was something familiar in those inwardly golden glowing scales.
Amie crawled over to the edge where the beast was retching in pained spasms, cracks and pops filled the space between his screams as his form struggled to change. She had rounded to where he was wrapped into himself, clutching at his belly with massive taloned claws. Smoke billowed from his nostrils and into her face, taking the breath from her lungs.
Instead of the rational fear she should have felt, Amie’s inner nixy thrummed to life in her veins. She knew the beast wasn’t going to hurt her, but he was obviously struggling for control. So she did the unthinkable. Before Faye could snatch her away, Amie ran to the dragon’s head and pressed her hands to the bridge of his snout.
“Amie!” Faye’s scream came more like a hoarse whisper.
After waving Faye away, Amie gasped to find an eye the size of her head, reptilian iris outlined by rust and shades of blood, staring unblinkingly at her. For an instant she could feel the press of frightened voices trapped inside the ring, warning her of the power of this dragon. But she fought the urge to recoil and smiled when she felt the familiar tug of her inner nixy.
“Grrathgar,” she whispered.
The beast roared, the gust of air throwing her back against the rocks. Covering her ears, she screamed with it. Bone and sinew popped and crushed in sickening echoes with his pain. When it was over, the creature had disappeared and in its place lay the naked form of a man. The dust of his shed skin was over everything, covering it in a fine layer. Dearg gleamed as if he had been hewn from the precious metal itself.
As soon as she found her footing, Amie was at his side, turning him onto his back and clasping his chest. Still he shook in pain, broke out in a frighteningly cold sweat. “Dearg?” she attempted, willing him to open his eyes. His chest was nearly shredded with fresh claw marks, golden blood smeared over his tattered flesh. An unnamed deeply buried fear rose up in her again and she fought against its efforts to immobilize her.
A sob choked her as she whispered over him, even though her heart was breaking. “Dearg…you can’t die. I’m not strong without you. I can’t—I can’t face them alone. We’re so much more together than apart, don’t you know that?”
“Amie,” he breathed and her heart soared. Before he could speak again her lips were covering his, her hands pressing into his wounded chest, and life poured through her veins and into him. Her nixy covered them both, shining like the moon.
When she came up for air the dragon was still present in his golden orbs, yet a weary smile tilted his grin until it threatened to split his face in two. Amie’s relieved sob came out a laugh when he dug his fingers into her braid-bound hair.
In a crispy voice he rasped, “Foolish pixied wench. After everything I do you still try to kill yourself?”
Amie pushed off of him and snapped, “Are you kidding me? I just saved your tail, Eddie. You owe me for life now.”
“Then I suppose I should start repaying you soon, aye?”
Amie’s smile dimmed. Her fingers brushed the blood from his chest to reveal the fresh set of scars marring his chiseled chest. “So I’m guessing you’re not planning on telling me how you got these.”
His straight blond eyebrows drew together, the line of his chin settling into a hard edge as he replied, “You’ve changed things. I have watched from the stables, in case they learned the secret to come inside. I do not ken what you did, but the curse has been weakening.”
“Which one?” Faye asked from the other side of them.
Without turning his fixation from Amie he answered, “The curse that put my kind to eternal sleep. The youngest woke first and are angry. Some of my people forgot how to transform into their lesser skins long ago and only think in the simplest of terms. They wanted revenge and dragons do nay reason well as your lot.”
Amie reached to take his hand and squeezed it. “Do you think, if I release them, they’d fight on our side?”
Faye rolled her eyes and snorted, “Pig-headed optimist…”
“They will obey me,” he nearly growled.
Without missing a beat, Faye grilled him further, “And how are you so sure they won’t take off and burn the whole castle down?”
Dearg’s smile was pained and ferocious at once. “I reminded them of something they forgot.”
“What?” Amie’s soft voice drew his tortured gaze.
“That I am King.”
…
Dearg found his strength through Amie’s constant touch, the link of skin to skin and their laced fingers, enough to lead them back the way they should have come. Faye was more than happy to leave the darkness behind. The roars of the waking and dreaming dragons had the Unseelie jittery in such an enclosed space. Though Dearg countered her fears by telling her there were places in these forgotten caverns which spanned the length and height of villages.
Amie wanted to know how she could unleash the dragons fully from the curse. Yet when she suggested it, he eyed her warily and growled, “’Twould be most unwise to wake the elders. Slaine and I shall blither this army easily.” His accent always thickened the more relaxed he was around her. It also fulfilled a schoolgirl fantasy of hers, the whole handsome foreign stranger appeal, the reason for her former obsession with Michael Fassbender.
Faye snorted, “Whatever you say, Eldest,” earning a feral growl from Dearg. He was too close to the beast, understandable after centuries keeping it locked inside.
The stables were too dangerous now, he later told them. The battle had raged through the night and now the golem and Unseelie leading this attack had taken over the grounds. He had blown his cover when Slaine took a blast of ice fire to the wing and fell somewhere among the battlements. Ben and James helped cover him from the roof with their arrows and bullets, but it was obvious they couldn’t win this alone. And anyone who had been inside the house since the outer wall was breached hadn’t come out of it. The only good news was the defenses were keeping the enemy outside.
Still they had made their way to the familiar endless chasm and the bridge leading to the hidden stable doors and Dearg’s cottage. Amie felt warmth return to her at the sight of it and glanced up to catch his reaction. He scarcely lifted his weary blue eyes before hanging his head and leaned heavily into her again. Casting a worried frown at his tense jaw and the rigid lines his body had taken to in the last hour, Amie hesitated. His chest was healed but he was unfit for another fight in her opinion. Could they truly face the Exiled army and not expect for there to be casualties?
Faye sidled up to Amie with a playful nudge. “Hey, you okay there?”
“Yeah.”
Faye proceeded to do what she did best then, call out her innermost thoughts. “You know not all Unseelie are evil. Sort of like not all Seelie are pure.”
Amie snorted at the thought, Guess that counts me out, then.
“But the people we’re fighting lost themselves in the human world,” Faye added. “We don’t feel emotions like humans, or at least not so many at one time. Revenge to us means literal backstabbing, not emo
tional or whatever. Problem is, the moment the Unseelie realized they couldn’t ever come home, they started trying to rule over humans. You wouldn’t believe how deep they are.”
“Sounds political.” As Amie spoke, a tremor shook the ground high overhead, reverberating through the cavern’s foundations. A long look passed between them as she wondered what could be the cause.
Faye used her dagger to nervously pick away at the dried blood beneath her nails. “So maybe I should check out what’s going on up there? I’ll try to contact Ben and see what’s up before we come get you. Maybe you can find some pants for lizard man over here.” She smirked when Dearg growled low.
His voice sounded as if he had gargled with marbles, it was so hoarse from breathing fire. “I do be a better sight than that furry friend of yours.”
“Shut up, Eddie!” Faye protested, dragging Amie out of his arms and into her own. “You think you can manage him on your own?”
Squeezing back tightly, Amie nodded and flashed a weak smile. “I’ll see y’all on the other side,” she said, pulling away.
Faye pointed to her narrowed orbs with two fingers and directed them at Dearg. “Remember, we’re always watching.”
…
Amie watched while Dearg tugged on a pair of boots, wondering how long this set of clothes would last before they were shredded with his lesser skin. She also couldn’t help smiling fondly at his ginger hair, still coated in a fine layer of golden dust.
Dragon’s skin, Faye called it.
Reaching past the shelter of his cottage, Amie searched for Faye and found relief knowing she had made it past the stables. Reaching Ginuog’s position atop the towers of Wenderdowne was another matter entirely. She could only hope her friend’s recently revealed superpowers included scaling walls.
The house sensed her presence nearby and welcomed it, urged her to come quickly to a specific secret location. Amie didn’t understand why it wanted her there so much, but she could feel the dire urgency in the summons. The longer they waited for Faye in Dearg’s cottage, the more anxious she felt.
Silver Hollow Page 36
