The Monster Ball Year 2

by Heather Hildenbrand

  The sky wept for her. Her eyes remained dry. Gwyn was across the Irish Sea, but his memory followed her just as carefully as a shadow. How could she have misjudged his character so severely?

  She’d started that last day in Annwn, so many years ago, happy. She’d been in lust before, of course she had. She was fae, after all. Passion and pleasure were excellent pastimes. But she’d never been in love, true love, before Gwyn ap Nudd, whom she fell for slowly, and then as rapidly as a summer storm drenching the land. In the beginning, when their acquaintance was fresh and promising, and he’d come to her Court to build an alliance between Britannia and Éire, she’d been the more powerful of the two. The fading Nudd Llaw Ereint had become increasingly vocal about his transfer of power, but his son was still naught more than a fae prince.

  Nevertheless, he’d slowly wormed his way into her private fantasies, even when she kept him at arm’s length, deeming it best to keep their relationship political rather than sexual. Royals did not use other royals as physical playmates. Such tomfoolery only led to broken treaties. But, while she had little respect for Nudd Llaw Ereint, his son presented himself as different from the rest of the frivolous fae nobility. Through their many talks, she and Gwyn grew to be . . . friends.

  And then, while she wasn’t paying attention, the rapport between them turned alluring when fae, in general, were opportunistic and deceitful. Still, Aoibheall resisted her blistering attraction toward the handsome, intelligent prince, insisting it was lust and nothing more. She strove for indifference but lost interest in other lovers.

  It took her sister calling her out to help her understand the gravity of what was happening.

  “Why not fuck him and be done with it?” Clíodhna had asked. “He’s still a princeling, not yet king, and thereby fair game. Nudd Llaw Ereint wouldn’t object to your playing with him.”

  It didn’t feel like a game then, though. All the while, Gwyn steadily worked at the wall she’d erected between them with a hammer and chisel. He broke through on an ordinary night.

  The Éire fae delighted in his presence. Clíodhna wished to bed him, much to Aoibheall’s amusement, alongside so many other fae queens, ladies, and others. It would not have been unheard of, or even looked down upon, him enjoying a multitude of fae. Pleasure was pleasure, after all. Gwyn ignored the ethereal Clíodhna, though, along with all the others, choosing to spend his visits in Éire with Aoibheall.

  They were beneath the glittering stars, her Court dancing around wild bonfires. Instead of joining in the celebration, Aoibheall and Gwyn lounged on soft blankets and cushions before a smaller fire. Wine flowed, their cups enchanted to remain full. Aoibheall’s ladies in waiting, never straying too far away, giggled upon stolen yet handsome human males’ laps.

  Gwyn waved away a busty fae who was desperately trying to lure him to join in the dancing. Aoibheall chuckled, both bemused and entertained over his continuing refusals toward her ladies.

  “Someday,” she said, “you’ll have to give in to one of them, else you’ll break all their hearts.”

  He rolled to his side to face her, his face solemn. “There is only one heart that interests me.”

  Fae were not monogamous. There was no need, not when there was so much hedonism to find in so many others. Why, then, did her pulse leap and butterflies explode in her belly when he said such an outrageous thing?

  For the first time ever, Aoibheall could not pretend that she was unaffected. She couldn’t even laugh as most fae would have.

  “May I speak freely?”

  She should have said no. Instead, she swayed toward him like a lovesick fool instead of a queen. “Of course.”

  Stars, her answer was breathy. Embarrassing.

  Gwyn tentatively reached out, his palm decorated with calluses of one who was not merely a creature of pleasure. She held her breath, marveling at just how much she respected him for that. Would, could he dare to touch her? Did she want him to?

  His warm fingers, his skin met that of her cheek, and her body cried out, “Yes!” Heat, unlike any other, seared her soul, straight to her core.

  The people around them, the music and the bonfires all disappeared. There was only Gwyn, the blanket, and the moment.

  “You must know by now what I feel for you. Only for you.”

  She erupted in flames. Finally.

  Finally.

  His eyes were dark and earnest and fathomless, and she willingly flung herself off a cliff and into their depths. When their lips touched, she knew there was no turning back, at least for her. He tasted sweet like the fairy wine he’d recently drunk and like honey. He tasted right.

  Only Gwyn would do to quench her desires.

  She threw away protocol and history with that kiss.

  Not a full year had passed before, standing in the shadows of Gwyn’s sleep chambers alongside Nudd Llaw Ereint, she watched as the same fae who had vowed that he could never love nor want anyone other than her kissed his fated mate Creiddylad. She’d died inside as the pair stumbled toward the extravagant, sumptuous bed she’d awoken in that very morning. Hollowed out as the fae she loved avowed himself to another lady, uttering the same words he had to her the night she’d given herself over to him.

  Creiddylad’s cries of ecstasy still haunted Aoibheall’s nightmares.

  She’d walked away that day, from Gwyn, from Annwn, from her heart, all the way back to Éire. She refused to read any of the letters he flooded her with, the ones stained with snapdragons. She could not bear his lies or the fact that she, a goddess, a queen, had thrown tradition away to consider allying herself to only one fae.

  She cut all ties to Annwn.

  All too quickly, her power waned as Gwyn’s grew. He ruled the Otherworld, the hunt. He was a god. And now Aoibheall was nothing more than a banshee. Her Court was gone, her followers dead. No one dreamed of finding pleasure with her, not when Death was her sole companion. No one admired how she took pride in her work.

  She’d long accepted her fate even if she had long grown weary with her purpose. Eternity was overrated. She’d be content to fade away, just as her Court had.

  What she could not do, though, was forgive herself for falling in love.

  Never again, she vowed. Love is an illusion. Only Death is trustworthy.

  Which was possibly the gloomiest acceptance of all.

  Chapter Five

  Invitation

  A pair of calmer months slid alongside a silver lining: no further royal missives were delivered. Not that Aoibheall expected another—it was surprising enough that the most recent had made its way to her. Perhaps he’d found other amusement willing to play his games.

  Just when had the penultimate letter come? It must have been at least ninety or so years ago, she mused. All of the parchments in her trunk, save the latest, were yellowed and brittle with age. Ninety years prior, and then they’d ceased coming. Why continue to crash upon an unbreachable wall?

  The storms that terrorized County Clare passed. Her mind was clearer. Her emotions stabilized. She spent her days plucking the strings of her harp and knitting a new shawl. She was an excellent knitter, and her region produced quality wool. Her home smelled of vinegar and lemons instead of snapdragons; moss briefly no longer stained the walls. Her patch of herbs was well-tended. She devoured one mediocre and two excellent books from the local library. The strings tying her to the O’Briens remained lax.

  Aoibheall settled comfortably back into her routine, her life. Then, a new letter came, taking her by surprise.

  In the days of yore, the night sky was awe-inspiring even to the fair folk. Aoibheall had loved to lay upon the summit of Craig Liath, hands beneath her head, and take in the glittering swirl of the night’s milk spill and the diamonds crowding the entirety of her field of vision. Revels would commence around her, but it was the scene above that captured her attention. It was a humbling reminder, for a goddess and a queen, that domains and peoples and purposes were nothing compared to the mysteries of the un
iverse. Even before humanity and its light pollution had stolen the night’s jewels, her world had shrunk to the crag, to the O’Briens. And yet, more dry nights than not, she found herself climbing atop her home to lie in the grass and reminisce.

  The Golden Age of Fae had passed. Éire was firmly in the Age of Humans. She walked among short-lived souls, drank in County Care’s pubs alongside humans, shopped in their stores, watched their movies in theaters. She was there and present and belonging and yet not.

  Always just an inch out of place with one hand still reaching for the days when knights and castles and fairies and magic were real. When she mattered.

  The moon wasn’t as bright as it once was, but it still hung in the velvety black, lighting her way atop the crag. Instead of a cacophony of stars, electricity from homes and towns glowed in the distance. Overhead, a few dozen weak celestial bodies fought for attention.

  I’m here, she silently told them. I’m still here just like you.

  And then, magic she had not beheld in ages charged the very air. The moon’s incandescence waxed, bright enough she had to shield her eyes with a hand. A luminous flash of light coalesced, focusing into a gentle beam that swirled down, illuminating the patch of crag she lay upon. In it was a slip of parchment.

  Bemused, she accepted it.

  Annwn’s seal was nowhere to be found. In its place, in elegant script, was: The Monster Ball.

  Aoibheall flipped the missive over. Just as the moon has brought me to you, it read, so shall the moon bring you to the ball. All Hallows’ Eve. The Witching Hour.

  An invitation. Or, perhaps, an order? Who dared to order a banshee such as she?

  She sat up, rereading the brief message. The Monster Ball. She rooted around in her memory for any spark of familiarity but failed to find anything.

  Well, hell. That left one option.

  Chapter Six

  CLÍODHNA

  “Sis!” Clíodhna cried over the hiss of distance and cell phone coverage. “I was just thinking about you. How long has it been? Too long, I say!”

  Not long enough, Aoibheall thought grimly, remembering the jeweled box from ages ago. “I have a question for—”

  “County Munster and County Clare are not far apart at all,” Clíodhna continued, “yet, it’s been forever since we last saw one another. Shall you come to me? Me to you?”

  “Stars, no,” Aoibheall practically barked. Harps and wails, not that.

  A sharp intake punctuated the stunned silence.

  “I mean,” Aoibheall offered more sweetly, “while a visit would be quite something, I am calling concerning another matter.”

  She could visualize her sister’s face puckering all those miles away. She cared for her sister, of course, she did, but there was a wee bit of her that still blamed Clíodhna for what befell them.

  “You still hold the cat thing against me, don’t you?”

  There was that, too. She’d spent a whole day as a feline before Clíodhna figured out how to change her back.

  Yes, Aoibheall thought, fully acknowledging the depth of pettiness she wallowed in. “That’s in the past,” she said out loud, which was also correct. “As I was saying—”

  “You made the most adorable white cat,” Clíodhna said, sullen as a child who’s toy was taken away.

  Clíodhna’s sense of self never changed even if her purpose had. The fellow banshee was who she was: impulsive, beautiful, manipulative, and yet aggravatingly earnest.

  Aoibheall forged forward. “I received a peculiar invitation last night and—”

  “Did you know that Ciabhán and I have made up?”

  Aoibheall sighed quietly. Her sister’s love affair with the oft-reincarnated mortal was also exasperating. “That’s lovely. As I—”

  “He’s come to live with me at Carrig-Cleena. His birth name this go-around is Sean. How funny is that? He has hair just as red as yours and the sweetest freckles. I just want to squish his cheeks. Our sex is mind-blowing.”

  Aoibheall collapsed onto her bed. She had to nip Clíodhna’s babbling in the bud, or she’d find herself either immersed in an unwanted visitor or on the phone until dawn. “The invitation is for something called The Monster Ball, and I have no idea what that is and wanted to know if you’d heard of it before.”

  She uttered it all in one desperate breath.

  For the briefest of seconds, her sister remained miraculously silent. And then, “Oh! I went to one of those a decade or two back. You got an invite? I’d love to go again. What a wild night!”

  Aoibheall gritted her teeth. “And what, pray tell, is The Monster Ball?”

  “It’s a party, silly!” her sister crowed. “The party of each year for . . . I guess you could call them non-humans? More than just fae. Only a select number are invited and allowed in. Like the who’s-who and all. It’s a delectable time.”

  Clíodhna, Aoibheall could understand. Clíodhna technically oversaw the few banshees in existence after Aoibheall refused the position. Why would Aoibheall get an invite? She grudgingly admitted she was a monster in the loosest sense. Mortals feared her for what her cries and harp could do, even if she only affected the O’Briens. Mortals’ preposterous stories about banshees were both amusing and vexing.

  But who were the rest of the monsters? What other mortal legends were real?

  “You’re going, right?” Stars, Clíodhna was still at it. “Do you know what to wear?”

  Aoibheall glanced down at her leggings and hand-knit sweater. Modern clothes were a revelation. Inside her hill, and when she aimlessly walked amongst mortals, she chose to put away her official uniform of green kirtle and scarlet cloak and indulge in comfort. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a ball, sis. You need to wear a ball gown.”

  Now, that was startling. “I—”

  “Don’t have one.” The excitement in her sister’s voice ratcheted up to a new level. “I’m on it!”

  Chapter Seven

  Dress

  Clíodhna threatened to visit multiple times, but Aoibheall managed to effectively concoct plenty of reasons why her sister ought to stay put with her boy toy. Undeterred, Clíodhna shipped half a dozen gowns from County Munster to County Clare. Half were scandalously hideous and better suited to her sister’s questionable taste. Two were wretchedly dull, even for Aoibheall. Clíodhna loved to tease her about her lack of a fashionable wardrobe.

  One was perfect.

  Aoibheall wasn’t even sure until she laid eyes upon the gown if she was going to go. Now that she’d opened the communication gates, Clíodhna called daily, reliving her experience at the event. Éire was so sheltered when it came to other non-mortals. Fae ruled supreme. Other creatures, magical and mysterious and fascinating, populated the rest of the world. The ball was a chance to meet them, Clíodhna hammered into her. It was a chance to step outside of their spheres even if just until sunrise.

  And Aoibheall’s world was so small, so isolated and familiar and green.

  The dress was too breathtaking to waste. It was long-sleeved and black, its neckline plunging toward her waist. Thousands of gems glittered in darts toward her collarbone and the hem. It was a memory, she realized. It was the sky of her youth.

  It was, in the oddest, most yearning way, hope.

  One night can change everything, Clíodhna promised.

  If only.

  “Maybe you’ll meet someone,” Clíodhna said. “Wouldn’t that be lovely? I can’t believe you’ve holed yourself away after the You Know Who incident. We aren’t meant to be alone, sis! I’m not even monogamous, and I have Ciabhán. That reminds me; we have the most sublime orgies. You should—”

  “I thank you for the dress,” Aoibheall said wryly. There was no scenario in which she would participate in her sister’s orgies anymore. Gwyn had ruined that, too.

  Clíodhna sniffed. “The offer stands.” And, then she added, “Make sure you do something with your hair. Makeup might be a good idea. It is the Age of Humans, after all.”<
br />
  “Thank—”

  “I could come and do your hair if you like?”

  Aoibheall sighed quietly. She really ought to let the past stay where it was. “Perhaps after the party,” she offered tentatively, “we might have tea—”

  “Yes!” The sound of clapping hands left Aoibheall nearly dropping the phone, it was so loud. “I’ll bring Ciabhán and some others and—”

  Aoibheall didn’t get another word in for a quarter of an hour.

  Before they bade one another goodbye, Clíodhna reminded her that she needed to be outside at midnight on All Hallows’ Eve. Aoibheall had a general idea of what was to happen as her sister was never one to spare details. That was how she found herself, clutching the invitation, on top of her crag, resplendent in stars and night. Her curls mutinied in the wind.

  Maybe she should have taken her sister up on her offer for hair and makeup.

  She glimpsed up at the moon. It was clear and bright. Nearby clouds courteously stayed out of its view. The radiant beam of light that had delivered a fresh shot at living reappeared, tunneling toward her. Within seconds, she was swept away.

  Chapter Eight

  Alley

  The alley was filthy and reeked of urine and dismay. Graffiti scrawled across the dank walls, and trash and vermin droppings littered the ground.

  Aoibheall considered her new, crystal-encrusted heels and nearly wept.

  In one direction, she spied a modern street flooded with electric light. Youths dressed in costumes, swinging plastic pumpkins and pillowcases, rushed past, no doubt on their way to mischief. The roar of cars and music crowded the air.

  In the other direction was a streak of scarlet. A doorway, she realized.

  Lifting her hem, she headed toward the door. Marble slabs sat above it, and on those perched a pair of elaborate gargoyles.