Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

From somewhere to my right, a delicious voice, at once rough and silky, purred, “You do not understand his true torment.”

I turned to face the frozen fountain. Well. The remains of it, anyway. Maybe a third of the ice mound remained, but it had partially uncovered the statue within-no statue at all, but a member of the Sidhe, a tall, inhumanly lovely woman, her appearance one of nigh perfection. Or it would have been so in other circumstances. Now, partially free from the encasing ice, her scarlet hair clung lumpily to her skull. Her eyes were deeply sunken and burned too bright, as though she had a fever. She stood calmly, one leg, her head, one shoulder, and one arm now emerging from the ice, which was otherwise her only garment. There was an eerie serenity to her, as though she felt no discomfort, physical or otherwise, at her imprisonment. She seemed to regard the entire matter with amused tolerance, as though such trivial conditions were hardly worthy of her attention. She was one of the oldest and most powerful Sidhe in the Winter Court- the Leanansidhe.

And she was also my godmother.

“Lea,” I breathed quietly. “Hell’s bells. What happened to you?”

“Mab,” she said.

“Last Halloween,” I murmured. “She said that you had been imprisoned. She’s kept you here? In that?”

“Obviously.” Something extremely unsettling glittered in her eyes. “You do not understand his true torment.”

I glanced from her to the Winter Knight. “Uh. What?”

“Slate,” she purred, and flicked her eyes in his direction. She was unable to move her head for the ice about it. “There is pain, of course. But anyone can inflict pain. Accidents inflict pain. Pain is the natural order of the universe, and so it is hardly a tool mete for the Queen of Air and Darkness. She tortures him with kindness.”

I frowned at Slate for a moment, and then grimaced, imagining it. “She leaves him hung up like that. And then she comes and saves him from it.”

My godmother smiled, a purring sound accompanying the expression. “She heals his wounds and takes his pain. She restores his sight, and the first thing his eyes see is the face of she who delivers him from agony. She cares for him with her own hands, warms him, feeds him, cleans away the filth. And then she takes him to her bower. Poor man. He knows that when he wakes, he will hang blind upon the tree again-and can do naught else but long for her return.”

I shook my head. “You think he’s going to fall for that?” I said. “Fall in love with her?”

Lea smiled. “Love,” she murmured. “Perhaps, and perhaps not. But need. Oh, yes. You underestimate the simple things, my godchild.” Her eyes glittered. “Being given food and warmth. Being touched. Being cleaned and cared for-and desired. Over and over, spinning him through agony and ecstasy. The mortal mind breaks down. Not all at once. But slowly. The way water will wear down stone.” Her madly glittering eyes focused on me, and her tone took on a note of warning. “It is a slow seduction. A conversion by the smallest steps.”

The skin on my left palm itched intensely for a moment, in the living skin of the Lasciel sigil.

“Yes,” Lea hissed. “Mab, you see, is patient. She has time. And when the last walls of his mind have fallen, and he looks forward with joy to his return to the tree, she will have destroyed him. And he will be discarded. He only lives so long as he resists.” She closed her eyes for a moment and said, “This is wisdom you should retain, my child.”

“Lea,” I said. “What has happened to you? How long have you been a Sidhe-sicle?”

Some of the strength seemed to ebb from her, and she suddenly seemed exhausted. “I grew too arrogant with the power I held. I thought I could overcome what stalks us all. Foolish. Milady Queen Mab taught me the error of my ways.”

“She’s had you locked up in your own private iceberg for more than a year?” I shook my head. “Godmother, you look like you fell out of a crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down.”

Her eyes opened again, glittering and unsettling as hell. And she laughed. It was a quiet, low sound-and it sounded nothing like the laugh of the deadly Sidhe sorceress I’d known since before I could drive.

“Crazy tree,” she murmured, and her eyes closed again. “Yes.”

I heard heavy, thumping steps on the staircase, and Thomas came sprinting onto the parapet, fae-bloodied sword still in hand. “Harry!”

“Here,” I said, and waved an arm at him. He glanced at Charity and Molly, and hurried over to me.

A little lump of fear knotted itself in my guts. “Where’s Murphy?”

“Relax,” he said. “She’s downstairs guarding the door. Is the girl all right?”

I pitched my voice low. “She’s breathing, but I’m more worried about damage to her mind. She’s crying at least. That’s actually a good sign. What’s up?”

“We need to go,” Thomas said. “Now.”

“Why?”

“Something’s coming.”

“Something usually is,” I said. “What do you mean?”

He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “Since last year… since the Erlking… I’ve had… intuitions, maybe? Maybe just instincts. I can feel things in the air better now than before. I think the Wild Hunt is coming toward us. I think a lot of things are coming toward us.”

No sooner had he said it than I heard, blended with the distant cry of the wind, a long, mournful, somehow hungry horn call.

I stepped up onto the edge of the fountain and peered out into the moonlit night. I couldn’t make out anything very clearly, but for an instant, far in the distance, I saw the gleam of moonlight on one of the odd metals that faeries used to make their weapons and armor.

Another horn rang out, this one more a droning, enormous basso- only the second horn came from the opposite side from the first. Over the next few seconds, more horns joined in, and drums, and then a rising tide of monstrous shrieks and bellows, all around us now. In the mountains east of Arctis Tor, one of the snowcapped peaks was abruptly devoured by a rising black cloud that hid everything beneath it. A quick check around showed me several other peaks being blanketed in shadow. Horn calls and cries grew louder and continuously more numerous.

“Stars and stones,” I breathed. I shot a glance at my godmother and said, “The power I used here. That is what caused this, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Lea said.

“Holy crap!” Thomas blurted, jumping like a startled cat when what he must have thought was another statue moved and spoke.

“Thomas, this is my godmother, Lea,” I said. “Lea, Th-”

“I know who he is,” my godmother murmured. “I know what he is. I know whose he is.” Her eyes moved back to me. “You summoned forth the power of Summer here in Arctis Tor, in the heart of all Winter. When you did so, those of Winter felt the agony of it. And now they come to slay you or drive you forth.”

I swallowed. “Uh. How many of them?”

The mad gleam returned to her eyes. “Why, all of Winter, child. All of us.”

Crap.

“Charity!” I called. “We’re leaving!”

Charity nodded and rose, supporting Molly, though the girl was at least mobile. If she’d remained unaware and walled away from the world, it would have been a real pain to get her all the way back down the tower. Molly and her mom hit the stairs.

“Thomas,” I said. “See if you can chop off some of this ice without hurting her.”

Thomas licked his lips. “Is that a good idea? Isn’t this the one who tried to turn you into a dog?”

“A hound,” Lea murmured, glittering eyes flicking back and forth at random. “Quite different.”

“She was a friend of Mom’s,” I told Thomas quietly.