Chapter 50 #2
I kicked my horse into a gallop. “By oak and ash, yew and willow, by the blood of my mother Una and the kinship we share, take me to the last piece of my heart.” And we surged forward, swift as though we rode on the back of the wind, leaving the Wild Hunt in our wake.
But one cannot outrun the Hunt. Not forever.
The tangled woods parted before us as my horse ran, over moss and fern and ruddy fallen leaves, to a place of roses surrounding a well. Amadan’s well. My roses. A riot of oxblood on crimson, as if someone had tried to pluck one and pierced their skin on its thorns.
Before the well stood a young boy with ruddy-gold hair, not yet old enough to apprentice, but close to it.
Beside him stood a woman, an ordinary woman, roundish and shortish, wimpled but with, I knew, the same shade of hair.
And beneath the wimple bloomed a rose as red as those that curled around my ankles.
Her kirtle was green as the forest around her, her round face pleasant and sweet.
That cruel sensation hit me again, repulsive yet drawing me near. I doubled over, stumbling into the greenery around me that I would not be seen.
Bess too clutched her belly, making a sour face as though her monthlies were upon her. Yet she gave Jamie a sweet smile and croaked out. “What are you doing out here, poppet? ’Tis Samhain and chilly; winter is on its way.”
Jamie nodded but did not speak, only lifted his head to gaze plaintively up at her.
“I only came out here myself because my cat got loose, tricksy creature.” She straightened and frowned, as she looked about herself. “Strange that she should lead me all the way here. I don’t recall running this far at all.”
A vision flashed into my head then of her cat, black as night with emerald eyes and peculiarly tufted ears. Cait sith. It was one of ours.
Dread pitted in my belly as I heard the Hunt behind me. Discomfort swam in my veins, and sparks wanted to pour out my skin. I kept control, but just barely, as I stepped out of the green.
“Jamie,” I hissed. “Come back with me.”
He turned to face me, horror in his eyes, as the Hunt approached. Then he shook his head.
My mouth tasted of bile, even while my belly roiled with hunger, and my skin stung and crackled at the presence of Bess Grieve.
Faery, it seemed, could contain the both of us. The human world was not meant to do the same.
“Jamie,” I tried again. “The Dark Fool made it seem as though I meant to hurt you. He put my knife under your bed. But I never would have used it, you must believe me. You know I cannot lie.”
He chewed his lip pensively, cocked his head. Jamie was not stupid, even if he did not speak.
Bess gave Jamie a half-hearted shove to put him behind her, her face twisted with pain. “You are—do I know you?” Had so many years passed that she had forgotten my face? For she was older now than I had ever grown in her skin, and mortal memories can be tricksy things.
Then Bess saw the Hunt, skeletal, menacing, darker than the coldest winter night. “They . . . They . . .”
Her mouth dropped open and she went wordless with fear. Sweat beaded on her forehead even while her skin went white. Does she know how we hunger? Does she recognize the Hunt?
“Forget the Hunt,” I ordered. “They will not harm either of you. Only hand over the boy, now.”
When did I become the beast, the ravenous monster, the coming storm?
A hound leapt forward, snapping its jaws. Bess screamed and Jamie shook.
“Hold them back,” I command the Horned One. But we were so hungry, all of us. Even I wanted to taste Jamie’s flesh.
“I will not give him up.” Bess straightened, though the pain overtook her. I knew it overtook her, for wasn’t it overtaking me? And yet she stood her ground. No mere mortal, I had called her, and I was right. Bess reminded me so of her mother, protecting the helpless and young.
“Give him to me,” I commanded. “The boy will not be hurt. I have sworn him my protection.” I wished I had ever thought to do the same for her.
I want you to be happy, Bess Grieve. That was all I ever wanted.
But I do not always get what I want.
The hounds snarled, and one of them pulled so hard on its lead the cord began to fray.
“We will leave when we have the boy,” I promised, but Bess shook her head.
“The Teind, my liege,” the Horned One said.
“I said I have made arrangements. They are not these!” The pain of Bess Grieve’s presence tore into me as I reached for Jamie, poor Jamie, who looked so frightened, so very cold. But he took my hand, he finally took my hand.
Even as the hounds broke free and rushed upon Bess Grieve.
A spear thrust, just where her arm met her shoulder.
I felt the pain but also relief, as the presence tormenting me so weakened, pulled away from me, softened.
One of the hounds lunged at her, tore a chunk from her kirtle and her thigh, and it hurt me, oh, how it hurt me, but there was also less resistance, less of her rubbing against me, abrading my very spirit.
She screamed and was abruptly silenced, as the Horned One held his spear against her throat.
All at once, the rest of the Hunt stood back. Hounds snarled, pushed against their harnesses, but they did not attack. Their masters kept them at bay, waiting.
The Horned One threw a glance over his shoulder at me, eyes like coals in the face of a skull. “It is your move, my queen.” He held his spear against her, pinning her in place.
“No!” I cried out, and Jamie wept openly.
“She will die in any case. You feel it, my liege. How the discomfort of being in her presence lessens. Her life is seeping out. But it is of no use to us unless you take it for yourself.”
Can I save her? Her wounds are so great, and those caused by the Hunt can never heal.
Bess looked at me with wide eyes, those eyes the color of marshland which I had once borne. She could barely speak, and yet she uttered a single word: “Mercy.”
We were never meant to be both in the same place.
Tears poured from my eyes as I thrust Jamie behind me. He must not see. I could not let him see. And so, I pulled the knife from my girdle and, as swiftly as I could, showed Bess the only mercy I could at the time.
I slit her throat.
I did not lose the very essence of who I had been. I killed her and feasted upon her soul. I did not even feel the guilt anymore; another forty or fifty years and she would have been dead anyway. That is how we must see them, after all.
But I did regret how much I frightened Jamie.
When I turned back around, his eyes were squeezed tightly closed, his face turned away.
I placed a hand on his back and escorted him into Faery.
He walked woodenly, more like his false mannikin than his true mortal self.
I kissed him on his cheek as I showed him to his wonderful ocean bedroom, tucking him in like he was still a very small child.
“I am sorry,” I told him. It would be the very last time I used those words. We of Faery are not made for regrets.
He rolled away from me and buried his face in the pillow. Ever thereafter it was Lileas he sought out, it was Lyel, or it was Theron. Never was it me.
I returned to my own bedchamber to find the Dark Fool lying across my bed. After all he had done! Did he not realize I had discovered his little trick? For Amadan looked smug and satisfied as a recently fed cat.
I was all too aware of the knife sheathed in my girdle.
Amadan rose and kissed me, hot with pleasure, sweet and sharp as a thorny rose. “The Teind is paid, I can feel it,” he told me, squeezing my shoulder as we separated. “And a sweet and powerful Teind it was.”
I nodded only. “Bess Grieve is dead.”
“Oh.” His winged brows lifted in surprise.
That was when I knew what he intended. For Jamie to pay the Teind, not Bess.
He had played me, like he always played me.
Maybe since he stroked his long fingers along Mairi Grieve’s cheek and caused her death.
Maybe even before then when Lord Elidor planted the poisonous nail in my true mother’s bed.
Elidor had told me, “You cannot uproot us all.”
And maybe I couldn’t, but there was one noxious weed I could pluck from the ground now, and easily. I wove one hand sensuously behind Amadan’s neck. Then I slammed my dagger into his chest.
I released him, and time slowed. Amadan stumbled backwards, gurgled. I had caught him by surprise. The traitor hit the ground. I knelt beside him, not certain whether I wanted to comfort him, bring him back, or stab him yet again. In the end, I did nothing, but let him fall.
The Dark Fool had been right. Losing the essence of who I had been freed me to become the queen I must.
Amadan’s head lolled to the side, eyes wide even as they glazed over, and his body went still. The grass ate his blood, but nothing more.
Faery had already feasted on Bess’s human soul.