Melissa Marr - Radiant Shadows

Irial kept his hand on Niall’s wrist and whispered, “Wish I hadn’t been king when we met.”

“Iri—”

“Get them gone. Safe. Not here .” Irial let go of Niall and pulled himself away. “You too. Get out of here. Now.”

The expressions that crossed Niall’s face were ones Ani didn’t dare name, but she tasted everything. Irial wasn’t the only one wishing things had been different. Hoping they still could be. The Dark King stood. Niall’s softness was only for Irial—and Irial had asked him to repress that tenderness. The shadows in the room shuddered as Niall crossed the barrier that they’d formed.

Ani started to stand, but Irial took her hand in his. “Not yet.”

Niall was every bit the King of Nightmares in that moment. The rage that played under the edge of his emotions welled up like black tar. Ani thought she would choke on it—the loss, the fury, the vengeance. Here was the true Dark King.

“Twice now you’ve struck what is mine .” Niall bit the words off as he stalked toward Bananach. “The girl Tish was mine to keep safe. Irial is mine.”

“Was,” Bananach pronounced. “He’ll not survive the fortnight. He knows it.”

A roar filled the room as Niall gave voice to the rage and grief that they’d all felt. He punched Bananach, shoved spikes of dark light into her skin. “You do not hurt what is mine.”

She stayed motionless, said nothing.

Niall didn’t look away from her as he spoke. “Leave here. Leave Ani alone. You are banished.”

Bananach tilted her head, looking inhuman, but her words were calm. “War cannot be banished. You know that, Gancanagh. You aren’t going to win. One by one, you lose. I grow strong as you fall.”

Niall didn’t take his attention from Bananach. “You gave me a vow of fealty. I could kill you for—”

“No, you couldn’t,” Bananach crowed. “My betrayer told you. Sorcha will die, and then all of you will die. Kill me, and I still win. Is the little Hound worth it? Is your anger over Irial reason enough?”

Then Gabriel’s voice whispered inside Ani’s mind: Go to Faerie.

Ani looked up and saw her father in the doorway to the kitchen with Rabbit and Seth. They were opening a path for her exit.

Ani, Gabriel snarled inside her. Get them out of here.

She felt it then: the Hunt was here. The Hounds filled the too-small house.

Now , Gabriel added.

Seth, Devlin, and Rabbit weren’t making much progress against the Ly Ergs, but they were keeping the tide from reaching her and Irial.

“Please, pup?” Irial said. “The Hunt won’t fight as well with you and Rab here.”

“Come with—” she started.

“No.” He had pulled himself to a sitting position with the aid of several abyss-guardians. “I stay with Niall…. Can’t really run right now anyhow.”

Gabriel and Niall were in a blur of violence with Bananach. In the hallway, Ly Ergs and other faeries Ani didn’t know were already fighting with Hounds. One Hound toppled a shelf onto a cluster of Ly Ergs. The red-handed faeries were scurrying everywhere like vermin. Several thistle-fey accompanied them. One female Hound grabbed the fire poker and speared it into the leg of a thistle-fey, pinning him to the floor with the brass shaft.

Ani made her way toward the kitchen, where Devlin was launching knives from the kitchen block. His aim was still precise one-handed, and despite the blood running down his other arm, the look in his eyes told her that he’d rather fight.

If they didn’t get Seth to Faerie, there soon wouldn’t be a Faerie. If they stayed, they wouldn’t all survive. This wasn’t a fight they could win.

But it still took every once of control, more than Ani thought she possessed, to say, “Let’s go.”

As they made their way through the fracas, Ani kept Rabbit behind her. Seth brought up the rear, and she and Devlin cleared a path. Even with blood streaming down his slashed arm, Devlin was fierce. His movements were clinical, though; there was a precision to the strikes. Hounds aided them, keeping their route open.

Once their small group was away from the studio, they maintained a triangle formation, but with Ani joining Seth at the back. Without speaking, they each scanned their respective sides of the street. He didn’t try to watch her area—or fail to monitor his own.

For a nonpack faery, he’s not bad.

As they proceeded farther from the fight, Seth’s uneasy glances at Devlin seemed to match her own. Why? Seth’s watch over Rabbit made sense: they were friends of a sort. The attention he paid to Devlin was equal to his regard for Rabbit.

“Let me help.” Seth spoke quietly. “Devlin?”

“No.” Devlin didn’t even look at Seth. “Be silent.”

The terse way Devlin spoke made her think that the unspoken topic wasn’t about protecting them. They passed a number of mortals, and Ani was grateful that everyone other than Rabbit had the ability to don a glamour to hide their bloodied and bruised state. Rabbit, who walked in the middle, was spared attention by his position.

The few faeries who saw them passed either gaped at them or scurried away quickly. Seeing bloodied Dark Court faeries was not unusual, but seeing the Summer Queen’s beloved in matching condition was noteworthy—as was seeing the High Court’s assassin in the company of Hounds. If not for the worry and fear, she would find the fleeing faeries’ reactions amusing.

Silently, she followed Devlin and waited for word from her father. Even at this distance, she could feel her link to the Hunt. She didn’t speak to Gabriel, but she listened, knowing he’d warn her if any of Bananach’s faeries escaped the Hunt.

Devlin and Seth both stopped. They had reached a graveyard at the edge of Huntsdale where Ani had attended more than a few parties.

Seth shot another worried look at Devlin’s arm. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, but it had slowed.

“Let me help,” Seth offered again. “You need blood.”

“Not here.” Devlin had a thin sheen of sweat on his face. “I can wait.”

“Let—”

“No,” Devlin snarled. A shadow flashed out from his eyes. “Do not offer a third time. You will not manipulate me thusly.”

Ani stepped up beside Devlin, not to get between them but to be nearer Devlin. “You want to clue me in?”

“That’s what he doesn’t want,” Seth muttered. “He’s lost too much blood, but my brother is being uncommonly stupid.”

“Your who ? What?” Ani looked between them. “Less clarity by the minute, guys.”

Devlin swallowed with effort. “Can we not do this yet?”

“If you bleed out, what good are you?” Seth spoke gently to Devlin, but his attention was still on their surroundings.

“Once we reach Faerie, Brother, ” Devlin said.

Rabbit and Ani exchanged a look. Rabbit shrugged and then asked, “So we’re here? At the gate to Faerie?”

“One of them.” Devlin stretched his bleeding arm into the air in front of him to grasp something that Ani couldn’t see. His blood sizzled as if something in the air burned him. He closed his eyes briefly, not enough that his pain was obvious, but enough that he dropped the shield around his emotions—and Ani almost stumbled in the flood of pain and fear that washed over her.

A veil appeared as if out of empty air. A gate. To some degree, she’d always assumed that she would see the doorways to Faerie if she passed near them.

“Dev?”

He glanced at her—and then he toppled forward into a silver veil that stretched like moonlight between the earth and sky. Waves ripped through the surface when he fell; the shimmering silver light was displaced by his form. Just as quickly, though, it stilled. It looked like liquid, but the weighty fall of it was that of thick drapes.