Kaitlyn
The shadow creatures swarm around Tam Lin as I wriggle in his grip.
They’re part smoke, part ghost, and on the occasions I glimpse what I think is their faces, bladder looseningly terrifying.
I don’t know what they are, but I can’t imagine they’re something which should be released into the Yeavering.
The Faerie Lord slowly lowers me onto the altar, even though I’m doing everything I can to fight him off. One now massive hand lifts, and I see Linton spin away from me. But the power holding me down is choking, and I can’t even cry out.
I’ve lost him once. I can’t possibly lose Linton again.
Three more shrieking shadow smoke creatures emerge from under the altar. My ears feel like they’re going to bleed from the noise.
And I can’t see Linton at all.
I manage to lift my leg and plant it into Tam Lin’s stomach. Rather than feeling hard, it feels squashy, like I’m putting it into a bog. He releases a gurgling chuckle.
“Whatever you do, little human, you will not be able to avoid your destiny.”
“I’m still…going…to…try…” I pull my leg free and attempt to kick him between the legs, if he still has legs…and if he still has something there which can cause him pain.
Unfortunately, because he’s somehow got bigger. Most Faerie are seven foot or more, but Tam Lin seems to be growing before my eyes, his body bulging, morphing, adding spikes where there used to be nothing but skin. So, my foot impacts something, but I’m pretty sure it’s not what I thought it was.
“If you’re going to fight, it is going to make this so much more enjoyable.” Tam Lin laughs.
His words only make me fight harder, trying to make myself liquid to slip out of his grasp, squirming and arching my back, hands scrabbling at his arms. I’m about to bite him when he wraps a hand around my neck and pins me to the cold stone of the altar, squeezing my windpipe and making me gasp for breath.
“Enough,” he snarls, his breath like a thousand rotting corpses. “It’s time for you to give up your soul and make me the ruler of the Yeavering and beyond the veil.
“I don’t think so,” I choke out. “You wouldn’t want my soul anyway. You have mixed me up with my sister.”
For a moment, he hesitates. Have I risked everything to gain a moment in which I might escape?
“Your sister?”
“She was supposed to come to the Yeavering, not me. I paid off the humans running the lottery to go in her place.”
Tam Lin lifts his head. It’s covered in great brown spikes, some sharp, some crumbling. His face doesn’t even resemble anything human anymore.
“Lord Guyzance would have known,” he rasps.
“Would he?”
“He would.” He shoves his horrible face closer, and I notice multiple eyes blinking across his cheeks. “He got close enough to you, after all.”
Something zips behind Tam Lin, or the horror which he has become. It’s not the shadow creatures which are howling above us as if calling more from the pit over which I’m laid. Tam Lin swirls around, temporarily loosening his grip.
I take full advantage of the distraction, ripping myself free from both him and the altar and rolling off, hitting the ground with a thump.
“This way, human!” a voice calls out from outside the stone circle.
I don’t know whether to trust it. I want to be with Linton more than anything.
“Quickly,” it exhorts, and as I peer into the darkness, I make out the great form of Reavely.
Linton did manage to get a message to him, as well as surviving what I thought was a mortal injury. It would appear it takes more than an arrow to the chest to kill my mothman.
I roll to my feet and run as fast as I can, out of the circle where a hand reaches out and drags me behind one of the stones. Warden gazes down at me in the dark.
“She can get out.”
“And Linton could get in,” Reavely replies.
“Aren’t you two going to go in to help him?” I exhort.
“I think he’s doing pretty well by himself,” Warden says.
I look out from behind my stone.
Lit by both the flickering torches and the horrible blue glow emanating from the altar, Tam Lin roars, his form now nearly the height of a two-storey building and even more terrible and twisted than before.
His skin is mottled like mould, his face is no longer a face but something straight out of an eldritch horror. Linton is nowhere to be seen.
Until he is there, roaring out into the darkness, dodging the shadow creatures and slashing at Tam Lin’s form with a dagger in each hand. As he does, black liquid courses from him in disgusting fountains, most of it getting on Linton, who doesn’t cease his attack.
Tam Lin swipes out at him, but Linton is too quick, yet more slashes appearing on the skin, or whatever it now is of the once Faerie.
“How do we stop this?” I turn back to Warden and Reavely.
“I don’t think Linton wants to stop.” Reavely picks at his teeth. “I think he’s enjoying himself.”
Another roar from Tam Lin rends the air.
Linton has managed to cut off his hand. The vast appendage falls to the ground, and I feel the vibration as it hits the ground.
“The altar, I mean,” I respond as Linton continues his attack on the Faerie, which he seems to be winning.
“Oh, the portal to the underrealm.” Reavely looks at the glowing thing which is getting brighter and spitting out more and more shadow creatures. “It looks like Tam Lin isn’t going to be paying his tithe today or any day. I think you’re going to have to close it.”
“Me?”
“You opened it.”
“I did not. Tam Lin did.”
Warden leans over to me.
“Your soul is pure. Only a pure soul can open the portal when the altar is in place, and only a pure soul can close it. You are the jewel, Kaitlyn.”
“My soul isn’t pure,” I retort, stamping my foot and wishing this dress wasn’t so see through. “I have bad thoughts all the time.”
“Only a creature with the purest of souls could attract a Bluecap,” Reavely says. “And tame him.” He cocks his head on one side, looking as dog-like as his name would suggest. “I know souls.”
“But how?” I query as the altar emits a grinding sound.
“Same way you opened it,” Warden says. “With your presence.”
A large chunk of Tam Lin lands nearby.
“Go,” Reavely says. “We’ll be right behind you.”
“Oh, you’re going to help Linton now, are you?”
“No, we’re going to deal with the Selkies. The last thing I need is those things flying around the Night Lands,” Warden grumbles.
“We’re right behind you,” Reavely says again, giving me a shove forward but still holding onto my arm.
Above us, there is a growl, and Linton swoops past.
“We need your mate to get us into the circle,” Warden calls up at my mothman, who is covered from head to foot in the liquid which Tam Lin has been shedding. “We are not technically touching her.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I swear under my breath. “Here goes nothing.” And I leap between the stones.