Henry shook his head, finding enough air to answer, “Not much time is left, Jessamiene. Ye must be swift.”
Gasping for air to keep the tears at bay, Amie renewed the trickle of her nixy to Henry’s fading lifeline. Careful not to pour too much too quickly, she willed the flesh around his festering wound to maintain when it refused to mend.
Shaking his head, he attempted to brush her hands away. “No…”
Amie cried out in frustration. “We’ve already been through this! I already lost a father once before and I’m not losing you. I made my choice. I want to stay here with you and help you rebuild, turn this place into what it was meant to be. Don’t you know how much it’s meant getting to know you, even when you were just Uncle Henry? You gave me my life back! And if you die you’ll be taking it away again.”
His smile was bright as the dawn at the promise of her declaration. “If I could die a thousand deaths only to hear those words again, child… You have granted me the only wish I ever wished for myself.”
Amie gasped with disbelief when he gently pushed her back and fastened his gaze on Dearg.
Gravely he spoke to the Freargde now at her side. “You know what must be done now if we are to survive.”
“Aye, Iudicael, I am ready.”
“Promise me you will watch over her always and make her interests above your own?”
Amie wanted to protest when Dearg knelt beside them and took her hand in his.
“Forever,” he said.
She wanted to scream as once again choices were being made over her without her control. She wanted to shout at her father and Dearg and tell them both where to shove their almighty plans. The pact they had made weighed heavily over her, further tightening the chains of their bond until they were faintly aware of each other’s emotions and feelings. Just as quickly it was gone and he had left them to say their goodbyes.
Henry drew her to him until she was once again resting against his bloody chest. He sighed and whispered over her, “Creator protect and keep thee. Watch over my daughter in the coming life, help her endure the sacrifice she is bound to make.” For a moment of silence they rested together, only the sound of their hearts beating in time to the pounding powers ripping the earth to shreds outside.
There isn’t much time.
Amie knew Slaine, Faye and Ginuog were doing all they could to keep the enemy from reaching in, but they couldn’t last much longer. And it was going to take both she and Henry to command the ring’s true power.
“Unc—Father?” His chest hummed pleasantly with his smile and she nearly lost it then, knowing this was all he had ever wanted. “Father, it’s time.”
“Aye. Feel my nixy, Amie. Cling to it and direct it. The house will help you with the rest. We’ve been waiting for you, love.”
“Hang on to me,” she whispered before she gave into the growing pressure of their combined energies. Instantly their eyes flashed open wide and her body grew rigid, lifting from the hearth. Henry clung to her, the sound of their heartbeats echoing in the sudden hush that had overcome the room. Everything seemed to slow down so Amie could see them all.
She saw Underhill bury her face into Alastair’s shirt and Morcant sobbing on the floor beside them. She saw Emrys being tortured in the farthest corners where the shadows sought to maintain vigil, by the Unseelie who had broken into the house defense at last. Grimwich held his arms open wide before the open front doors, waiting to face them. Ginuog had run out of bullets and now wielded his giant crossbow to catch the enemy by surprise. Faye danced over them all, daggers flashing, with her nixy on the air.
Silvery light burst from Henry and Amie’s skins and filled the room until it shone whiter than the sun. The spirits of the wights that had been trapped in Wenderdowne screamed with awareness. Every dark creature on the grounds paused and screeched as the bright beams escaped the house and shot up into the sky, clearing the black cloud. And then it descended with increasing speed, rushing over the retreating dark Sidhe, burning them from the inside out until nothing but ashes remained floating upon the air. It filled every hall of Wenderdowne until the dark ones who had made it inside were also disintegrated into nothing.
Awareness was long coming to Amie after this. For those last few precious seconds she saw her father’s life play out before her eyes. She watched as he and Drustan played in the abandoned wing that had once been a school for the gifted, throwing little balls of energy back and forth at one another. She saw the wars of humanity rage as the brothers sought to fight against the wight who had started it all. She saw Dameri through her father’s eyes the first moment he saw her and the forbidden love that had existed so strongly between them. And then she saw him holding her as a newborn, teaching her to walk, to talk and first harness her inner nixy as a young child. With the memories of those lost years away no longer repressed to realistic dreams, her past came crashing back to her present.
When she opened her eyes the bright lights had faded and her father lay motionless, his eyes unblinking and shedding tears of joy in death.
Chapter 47
End of the Beginning
The Vale was secured once more, for good this time she hoped. Almost immediately the defenses lowered and Dearg left her to rejoin the others outside. He kissed her tears away and, pressing their foreheads together, whispered, “Stay here, love. I shall return.”
While the others rejoiced in the bittersweet aftermath of their victory, Amie left what remained of her family to grieve in their ways. Amie couldn’t stand to hear Morcant’s keening wails or Underhill’s sobs. So, disobeying Dearg’s request, she fled.
She knew once Dearg found them, the others would come looking for her soon and she felt too numb to handle any more emotional strain at the moment. Henry was gone but his essence had joined the others in her ring, his ring, she recalled. She wondered why Drustan had taken it away from his brother and now she’d never know.
Once she entered the scarred wing past Drustan’s former rooms Amie let the tears fall freely. Here was where they had taken Emrys to torture him. She had seen his pain and wondered why she did not feel it before. Their connection had always been strong, ever since he brought her back to life. No one but she cared whether the Merlin lived or died. But she wanted to do more than care, she wanted answers.
Wenderdowne looked and felt lifeless. No sound permeated these ruined walls and the smell of death followed the draft. What seemed like yesterday, Amie had followed Emrys to this very part of her legacy, where he had offered her a tame version of the past.
In the far distance she heard the front hall doors slamming open and a chorus of joyful voices calling out her name. Wiping away her tears and remnants of her father’s blood, she found the fork in the path and kept right until she found the hidden library. Voices whispered in the dark, echoing her own grief, and a chill grazed the tip of her spine.
“Emrys?” Amie whispered upon entering the shadows, knowing full well he was nearby and would hear her no matter where he was in the house. When he didn’t answer she gritted her teeth and clenched the light sphere held aloft into her hand. “Fine,” she grumbled, “I don’t need your help.” She entered Feather’s library and found no candles lit inside, no fire blazing in its hearth. It felt lifeless.
Why would they have brought him here?
“Still haven’t yet learned your place, have ye, Jessamiene?” a disembodied voice said.
Holding off a shriek, Amie held onto the broken wood with the tips of her fingers. Her grief was too present, and nearly all her strength had gone into saving them. Still she struggled to concentrate on the energy giving off light in her palm and turned to face him.
“A Seelie queen should never entertain the advances of a wight. Has Lewyon not warned ye of this historic fact?” Emrys stepped into her light, like the night they met in the hall outside her room, unaffected by what he had been through. “Sooner or later, you’ll be consumed.” His fine princely clothes were smattered with blood and grime. L
ooking like he’d been to hell and back didn’t diminish the confidence of his steps or the gloom that followed him.
Amie concentrated on deep breaths, fought the urge to throttle him with her bare hands and the type of nixy blasting he would not recover from. “They were torturing you here. I saw it clear as day. I’d ask if you were okay, but I think we already know the truth. I want answers, Emrys. I want to know why you killed my parents, I mean, Drustan and Lynn.”
“’Twas the only way to make ye afraid enough to cross the Atlantic and ye know it.” He then surprised her by holding open his arms and tilting his head forward. “Well, now that ye know the truth, aren’t you going to do it?”
Caught off guard, Amie only then noticed the silver energy rushing furiously up and down her forearms. “What?”
“Kill me? ’Tis what ye want to do, isn’t it? Justice demands it, an eye for an eye, as they say?”
Amie gritted her teeth, enraged he could speak so flippantly of life when Henry wasn’t even an hour gone. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of death.”
Letting his arms down to his side, he nodded resignedly. “So they told you did they? The truth and nothing but?” Laughing, he began to close the space between them. Amie knew the pull he had on her, but only then had the courage to learn why.
“Why don’t you tell me? I think we’ve played enough games. You may have thousands of years over me, Tuatha, but I’ve got this.” Holding up her hand she displayed her father’s emerald ring, reminding him of the most recent change in her. The moment Henry was gone Amie felt the fullness of her inheritance settle in her bones. She knew without a doubt she was strong as anything her teacher could throw her way.
“And I see you’ve finally accepted who you are, Jessamiene,” he said through gritted teeth. Only then did she notice the twitching of his limbs, the way he continuously seemed to lurch forward, then hold back. His black eyes were slightly glazed over as well.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” she asked, lifting up a nixy-charged hand.
“I am not as I once was, Jessamiene. I have been cursed, made less than I was, so they could control me. I struck a deal for the last of my kind, not knowing we would all eventually fade. ’Twas the Sidhe’s final act of revenge…” He laughed bitterly, eyelids flickering as he clenched his hands again. Shadows were growing and receding between his fingers, pushing against her light with an increasingly oppressive weight.
Amie gasped and looked at him in alarm. “Emrys, what are you doing?”
Tears escaped the corners of his eyes. “I struck a bargain when I promised them entry into Wenderdowne, that they might grant me my freedom. I was never meant to fade away and die. I will live forever, long after the last of you are dead!” His voice had turned deeper, not himself any longer.
Fear clawed at her chest, making her belatedly aware this might not have been the best idea. “Emrys, I don’t know what they did to you, but you have to fight it.”
When he opened his eyes they were the shade of emeralds, framed by glimpses into his untarnished soul. “I loved you, Jessamiene. I love ye still as my own flesh.” For the first time she saw the creature behind the mask, gray-skinned with writhing shadows dancing behind his pupils. All his separately compelling features came together on his true face to uncover his beauty.
“Emrys, what do you need? You’re not acting like yourself. How did they nix you? If you tell me what to do I’m sure you’ll be back to normal.” Her voice was trembling, because the shadows had ceased pressing against her and now were draped around her shoulders, laying against her skin, sucking the nixy from her soul.
He shuddered, closing his eyes again and an unnatural roar built up in his chest. “Kill me! If ye don’t then we’ll never be free, Jessamiene, don’t ye see? They nixed me so I would turn against ye!”
Amie shook her head and tried to force her light to grow, tried to shock him with a jolt of her violet energy. Instead of snapping him out of whatever spell he was under, something akin to a snarl and a hiss escaped from deep in his chest.
He was on her faster than she could object, this man who had saved her life time and again, crushing her into his chest. Her skin tingled at the feel of him, the way she molded perfectly into his frame, it was effortless and terrifying in its ferocity. Drawing her closer he tucked his chin and lifted hers to meet his abysmal onyx eyes. And so he drained the life from her with his touch, much as he had nourished it. “I will love you till my soul is no more and my body naught but ash.”
She gasped when her light began to fade. “What are you doing to me? Emrys, why can’t I see?” She listened to his sobs, felt his tears on her cheek as they sank to their knees on the floor.
“We burned the earth with our lust for war once. It was good that I made them accept the pact. It was the only way we could survive into the coming age, until I could find my revenge.”
“That’s why you killed Drustan, isn’t it? Because he wouldn’t break your stupid curse? Didn’t you think he might not have another choice?” She struggled to be free of him but he had already drunk too much of her inner nixy. In all their training he had never done this to her before. Her heart broke and her body filled with dread as she understood the reason.
So he could kill me like this.
“I must do this so the line truly ends and my people are free. Don’t you see how cruel the Creator has been to me? Giving me back the face of the one thing I wanted most, the one thing I must sacrifice to undo all my wrongs!”
“Emrys, please!” Tears slipped down her cheeks. She tried to connect to the fading light of the ring on her hand, prayed for a way out of this. But a part of her, the lost little girl who had trusted him so implicitly, wondered if it was her time to die. Emrys was right at least in this regard. She had cheated death the night he brought her back to life in an alleyway.
Awareness trickled from her like the final breath before one’s soul escaped its fleshly covering. Death could have been peaceful, almost loving as Emrys’ embrace. But Amie forgot then the one thing she wasn’t allowed to ignore. With Henry gone the house needed her to live. And then she remembered her lessons, learning to survive without her five senses. He had taught her this, but to what purpose? Did he truly want her dead?
No time to think, just do it!
Amie felt in the dark for the light inside of her, grasped onto the flickering flame and blew on it until it fanned brightly. She felt her connection to Dearg flare to life inside of her again and instantly she felt the power behind his fury and pain. He was feeling what she was feeling right now, crying out to her to hang on, to fight back. Somewhere in the distance they heard his roar. And then her inner nixy began to grow and tear back at the shadows, combusted as it connected to Dearg’s dragon fire.
“Myrddin, let me go,” she warned but he only held her tighter.
“I cannot! Jessamiene, end it,” he gasped, meeting her gaze again. It was then she saw the fear in him. He feared what he was about to do to her if she didn’t stop him. “Forgive me for everything, Nimue. Make it right.” But his voice was fading already, along with his form until he was the one being drained in her arms. When she pulled back to smile sadly at him his eyes widened in shock.
“Jessamiene?” he intoned.
“I’m sorry, Myrddin Emrys, but it’s time for you to fade too.” Her voice broke at the last, for there was a part of her that had loved him too. She suspected she would never forget him as long as she lived, not even if she wanted to.
His relief was evident in his final words, “At last…” until he was nothing more than the outline of his former self.
For a long moment they stared at one another and she clutched her chest, surprised by the sudden loss she felt. And then her eyes were drawn to the sudden illumination of Feather’s library, the candles and hearth revealing the other hidden eyes that had been watching and waiting.
And elsewhere, the long diseased-looking, damaged portion of the house was fading too, growing lighte
r and brighter by the second. Bits and pieces of its former self realigned together, books were returning to their shelves and desks and inventions righting themselves.
Amie gaped at the multitude of wraith-like figures that had suddenly appeared with the breaking of the wight’s curse. They were taller and more dangerous than any Sidhe or Golem or human Amie had ever crossed. Darkness had crafted their beauty, yet they were no longer tainted by shadows, simply an absence of light.
As they began to recede and collectively sigh, disappearing forever, Emrys’s sharp smile was filled with the regret she had earlier glimpsed. His eyes burned with agony, with a dark other which he must keep secret and never tell her, this other piece of his fractured soul she could never know.
She blinked rapidly past her increasingly blurred vision, felt tears fall over her cheeks and lifted her eyes to meet his. She gasped as his translucent hands caressed either side of her face, energy and pain and heat emanating from his touch, and then his lips hovered above hers.
Amie’s eyes fluttered shut as she sighed, only to open them to an empty room. She stared at the place Emrys and his people had faded, clutching the scar on her chest long after. So she was almost unaware the moment Dearg appeared at her side. He placed his warm hand on her shoulder and she let him draw her into his embrace.
Epilogue
In the aftermath of the battle, Morcant and Grimwich allied themselves to Wenderdowne and their new Queen. Henry’s body was placed in the ancient hearth fire that same night, as his ancestors had been. Almost instantly it crumbled to golden dust and a fresh breeze filled the air and everyone in attendance could hear the tickle of the Lord’s laughter in their ears.
Amie spent hours going through Henry’s study, learning more about the Sidhe who had been her father, remembering the childhood he had made her forget. In a private ceremony she mounted Feather’s head on the wall of the library right above his great father’s, as the old gryphon had wanted.
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