Ryan Graudin - All That Glows

I’ve never woken up before. It’s one of the simple facts of a spirit’s existence. We don’t sleep. We don’t need to: magic gives us all the energy we need.

But when I stared so blankly into the darkness, I left myself. I can’t say how. Maybe it was the grief or the shock of the blood magic. Whatever it was, I was gone, lost for hours.

Something, someone is shaking me. Light forces through the cracks in my eyes. My body feels stiff, old, as if all of the years I’ve lived have finally passed through it. I sit up from the damp leaves and look around, my neck robotic and slow.

Morning—the clearing is bright and blue with it. The ground oozes wet with last night’s storm. Gashes of movement scar the drying mud, leaves splay everywhere.

“Emrys!” The princess is next to me, her hair mussed and golden like a lion’s mane. Bright, angry pink lines her eyes, framed by the old smear of coal-black makeup. “Emrys, wake up!”

Breena’s body is haunting in its closeness. I can’t not look at it, angled and sprawled like a broken marionette. The sight makes my insides hollow, drained like a cracked egg.

“What happened? Where’s Richard? Is he hurt?” Anabelle looks as unstrung and desperate as I feel. “I lost him when I was running through the woods and I thought he might come back here. . . .”

Something explodes, sharp and hot, inside my chest as memories of the night before rush back. Heartbreak all over again. I look away from Breena’s broken corpse and steel myself for what’s beside me. My hand goes out to touch him, but it falls into slimy ground.

Richard is gone. Stolen. There’s a slight imprint in the earth where he lay next to me, so rigid, so cold. Mab’s cronies must have arrived during my trance and taken it.

“No. No, no, no,” I sob, bringing my fist down into the rotting leaves. After all this, they still got Richard. They wrenched away our last moment together.

Anabelle stares into the mess of mud and mulch beside me. Her face is crypt white—tattooed with fear. “What happened?”

I look around the clearing, scanning for anything that can get me back to him. Last night’s footprints are everywhere, littered and preserved in claylike ground.

Anabelle’s hands snag my shoulders, firm and determined. I find myself looking into her eyes. They’re the color of earth. “Emrys, where’s my brother?”

My head buzzes with truth I can’t make myself speak. Dead. Richard is dead. I failed. I lost him.

“So, you’re both alive.” The sudden, gruff voice makes my body jerk.

Herne slips out of the trees, composed of shade and gloom even under glaring daylight. He looks smaller after the battle, all of his terrible energy released on some poor souls.

“It was her all along then?” His citrine eyes pick out the spot where Mab fell. He’s reading the spells, piecing together everything that happened. “Wouldn’t have guessed it. That’s why I tend to stay out of these affairs. Never know who to trust.”

“Have—have you seen the king’s body?” I manage. “It’s gone. I’m afraid it’s been stolen.”

Anabelle’s cry is desolate, filled with terrible knowledge and loss. It shatters what’s left of my heart.

“Body?” Herne steps closer, studies Richard’s shallow casting in the leaves. “The king is dead?”

I nod, fighting hard against the sobs that try to claw their way out of me. I can’t even bear to look over at Anabelle. “Mab’s magic tore him inside out. No mortal could survive that.”

Herne kneels down to touch the earth. One by one, leaves fall back, tattered and brown, through his gloved fingers. “Tell me. How did you manage to kill the Old One? You’re far too young to manage such a thing on your own.”

“Richard stabbed her and I finished her off.” I don’t want to think back on those last moments. Not now. Spare the princess those last, awful details. Her crying is mewling and awful. It scratches at my back like a pitifully angered kitten.

“There was something else. Something old,” Herne says, and brushes the last of the vegetation off his hands.

“Something happened—” My throat collapses. I can’t find the will to get past the choking.

Herne walks over to Mab’s other victim. The body they left.

From here I can see Breena’s fragile sketch of a face. Even in death she clings to her beauty. Her hair springs around porcelain skin like a crown; eyes glazed in a mysterious, knowing way. There’s no fear in them, no terror at the emptiness. Only peace.

Peace that’s beyond me now.

“Let’s take her back to the castle. It will do us no good to linger here,” Herne growls, his ember eyes flicker meaningfully toward the princess.

With her shoulders slumped and her hair inextricably knotted, Anabelle reminds me of a lost, young girl. But when her eyes meet mine, they harden and all thoughts of weepy children are lost to me.

“You promised you would protect him! He’s dead because of you!” she yells, her stare pinning me like gravity. Her accusations are only lighter echoes of the condemnations ringing through my mind.

I don’t speak. I don’t move. I just stare back into the devastation.

Anabelle keeps screaming words she doesn’t mean. Words she has to say.

It’s Herne who finally intervenes. He approaches the princess and touches her on the shoulder with surprising gentleness. There’s magic in his fingers—a soothing, merciful spell that causes Anabelle to crumple into his arms, fast asleep. Golden hair spills over the woodlord’s leather gloves as he gathers her to his chest.

“Come, Lady Emrys.” He steps toward the edge of the clearing. “I’ll see to it that the Dryads bring Lady Breena after us.”

There’s no will in me. No reason to fight. I follow the wild spirit through his woods, my thoughts buzzing with Anabelle’s words of blame. Not once do I look back.

There are many dead. More than I thought possible. Corpses drape Windsor’s turrets and walls—macabre garlands. Limp bodies of Black Dogs and Green Women lie tangled with the hollow forms of Fae. I recognize some of them as we separate the bodies, burning the soul feeders and setting the Frithemaeg aside for a final good-bye. Others, like Titania and her attendants, have vanished altogether, unmade by more brutal spells.

I feel useless without Richard, floundering in the middle of this desolate sea. His body isn’t among the others. Not that I expected it to be. It’s far from us now, in the clutches of some Banshee or Green Woman scavenging it for blood magic. They’ll find nothing. It isn’t Richard anymore. Just a carved-out shell.

It’s evening when we begin the funeral rites. It isn’t often that Fae must say good-bye to their own. Some of the younglings have never even been to such a ceremony. I stand by Breena’s body.

Tears blot my eyes as I arrange the leafy tiara perfectly against her head. Breena had been there even in my earliest days. Her words were the ones I followed. Her counsel and confidence had been as vital as water.