Page 14

Thirteen

Rhoswyn

M y throne has never felt smaller than it does right now. The iron-induced dizziness is making everything harder than it needs to be. It doesn’t help that the moss is slick—or maybe that’s just the blood coating my boots—and I cling to the woody branches above me for dear life as I balance on one armrest and desperately funnel magic from Danu to my mates.

I give them everything I have, pouring from the Goddess who—despite my precarious position—is still so distant in my chest. They’re injured. They need me, and I fight harder to grab hold of my connection to Danu, putting my all into drawing more magic.

Her power might be slow to come to me, but it flows like lightning down my mating bonds. There’s no searching for them or struggling to send them magic like there was before. They’re just there, right where I need them.

I sense them—I know exactly when one needs more from me than the others—and I give it freely. Mating has made this all so natural, easier than breathing.

There’s just one problem.

Me.

I’m the bottleneck between Danu’s immense power and my mates. It could be that there’s still traces of iron on my skin or simply that the land around Elfhame is just too polluted for me to pull from her like I need to.

Either way, taking from the Goddess consumes my rapidly diminishing focus. I don’t even notice my eyes have slipped closed until a clang of metal jolts them open again, followed by the brush of fur against my legs.

The Fomorians are surrounding the throne in a tidal wave of violence. There are too many of them, and I almost fumble my grip on the magic before I remember I can do something about this.

Prying my attention from the bond to Danu, I take a deep breath and let it out on a shout.

“Enough!”

Unfortunately, I didn’t anticipate how loud yelling while Danu is literally writhing in my veins would be. Ears ringing, I flinch as a hundred grey eyes snap to me.

Shit. Well, I started this. Better hope I didn’t accidentally deafen them. Their expressions—originally confused—quickly morph to fearful and wide eyed, and it’s then that I finally realise they’re scared of me .

“ Please stop fighting.”

It’s all I can come up with in the moment, and I realise my mistake a second later when swords drop and Fomorians start to flee. Some even jump for the windows, spilling out into the gardens.

Shit! They’re definitely going to summon reinforcements.

Those who were too involved to meet my eyes battle on, but they’re in the minority, for now. The retreating Fomorians create a new layer of chaos, crushing my mates in their haste to flee.

Bodies press around Caed, who’s farthest from me, obscuring him from my view. His pain radiates down the bond, but I can’t tell what’s happening.

An iron spear thrusts too close to my throat, distracting me. My lungs seize, and I almost slip and fall in my effort to dodge.

“Haor, Hogart, to me!” Elatha shouts.

Two Fomorians try to extract themselves from the rabble. In doing so, they draw attention to themselves, and Lore takes that as a personal challenge, collecting their heads and blinking them to the base of the throne like an offering.

Almost all of the uncharmed Fomorians are heading for me now. Single-mindedly crushing Drystan and Jaro as they strive to eliminate the threat. I still can’t see Caed, and Lore is little more than a red blur, his gleeful cackles echoing above the snarls, curses and cries filling the air.

It’s pandemonium.

This isn’t going to work. I need to do something. Anything.

Suddenly Wraith is here, alongside Jaro’s wolf, snapping and chomping at the blue limbs still reaching for me.

“The king is escaping,” Lore calls, sounding more put out than panicked. “And the idiot Fomorian is giving chase.”

“Púca, follow them!” Drystan snaps with all of the urgency that my redcap is missing.

Bree nods, disappearing through the crowd of fallen soldiers like liquid darkness. They fall as he passes, but his departure leaves me down two protectors.

“Maeve, any ideas?” I ask, not really expecting an answer.

I haven’t been able to see any of my guides since we entered the palace, which means my chances of summoning any spirits are close to nil.

My best hope of being helpful is finding somewhere that wasn’t affected by the Fomorian weapon.

Prae and Gryffin have Florian. Elatha is no longer present. If we’re lucky, there might be less iron away from the palace.

“We have to get out of here,” I call to Drystan.

I expect him to point out that we’re surrounded, and that it’s impossible, but instead he shouts, “Lorcan, get your arse out of the way.”

An arc of flame bursts over the room.

A scream builds in my chest as it heads straight for the blur of blood that is my redcap, but he just backflips over it—his cap shrinking to his head at the very last second. The fire causes the dust on the floor to ignite, clearing a path from the throne to the terrace, but the main door is still blocked, leaving no way for us to follow Caed, Bree, and Elatha.

“Move,” Drystan orders, the growl of Jaro’s wolf punctuating the snapped word.

Heart racing, I reach for Wraith, my hands shaking as they dig into the barghest’s fur. I swing my leg over his back, scrabbling to hold on as my connection to Danu snaps closed the second he starts running, leaving my insides stinging and raw from the rebound.

Thankfully, the Goddess’s magic being sealed away by iron doesn’t seem to faze my mates. Lore, Jaro, and Drystan keep close to my barghest as we make a mad break for it.

Getting free of the close confines and the Fomorians is a struggle, but we make it outside mostly unscathed. I drag in a breath, only to choke as I inhale some of the dust swirled up by the chaos. My lungs burn, but I don’t dare cough and distract my Guard.

We make it away from the terrace and into the woods beyond before the Fomorians manage to surround us again. There are just too many of them, and the sight of the wall looming beyond the withered trees only adds to the sense of being trapped.

Wait. The wall.

Hundreds of warriors are buried beneath the great walls. A literal army of the dead. My eyes light up even as I’m forced to duck as a sword slices through the space where my head just was. The whoosh of air over my nape is too close, and my fear only adds to the iron-induced nausea burning in my throat.

My idea is useless if I’m too dead to do anything about it.

“Drystan, the wall,” I yell.

“What about it?” he calls back, thrusting his sword through the skull of an enemy.

“They buried warriors on the wall! If there’s no iron, I can?—”

“Got it!” he says. “Jaromir, you take her left. Redcap, my horse?—”

A growl of affirmation and a whinny of alarm sound as Wraith rears back on his hindlegs, paws crashing down powerfully to crush the Fomorian who managed to get in front of us.

I’m still clinging to my barghest for dear life, my thighs clamped so tightly around his ribs that I know he must hate me for it. Still, he doesn’t make a noise of complaint as he bolts through the trees.

One second Lore is nowhere to be seen, the next he’s right behind me, his dick pressing against my ass as he whoops loudly right by my ear. The pain in my head splinters in answer.

“Lore!” I complain, and he presses an apologetic kiss to my shoulder.

“You can’t tell me you’re not having a little bit of fun,” he protests. “The blood is so pretty, pet. You wear it so well.”

Another kiss.

“You’d wear it even better if you were naked.”

Is he really propositioning me right now?

“Later,” I promise.

“After?” he pleads.

“After.” I have to yell to be heard over the war cry that bursts from the bushes to our left.

His grin is so bright that it distracts me from the dozens of Fomorians trying to kill us. Blinking away with a final kiss, he descends on the mob with a kind of renewed brutality that tickles the back of my brain. I think I might have just accidentally…

Wraith comes to a skidding stop, derailing my thoughts.

The wall looms over us, the grey stone coated in a fine film of iron dust.

But there’s less of it than there was in the palace. Wherever Prae’s weapon was deployed—however it worked—it was clearly centred there, not here.

Is the top of the wall clear?

Only one way to find out, I suppose.

I just need to get up there. I dismount, iron and dead grass crunching underfoot as Wraith leaps back into the fray. The stairs are to my left, crawling with Formorians, and I take a step in that direction, but my dizziness worsens until Drystan is forced to steady me.

“Lore, blink her up there. Jaro and I will meet you at the top.”

Lore is already atop the wall, a scarlet blur of blades and death, still whooping and cackling with glee as he takes out the soldiers.

They weren’t expecting an attack from inside the palace, and I’m momentarily grateful for that. By the time he blinks me up to the smooth, worn stone parapet, every single Fomorian within shouting distance is dead.

“What do you think?” Lore asks, peeking over the rampart at the moat and the city below. “I give us five minutes tops before they get here.”

He pauses, then whoops. “Actually, they might be a little busy. Look! Reinforcements have arrived.”

Before I can follow his finger to the faint smudge on the horizon, I’m distracted by Titania appearing on my right. She opens her mouth, but her words are silent, and I seethe in frustration.

“There’s still too much metal,” I mutter, scanning the stone and groaning at the sight of yet more black dust. “I can see them, but…”

Reaching them might be impossible.

I try my best to scrape it out of the way with one foot, but it does little. Short of someone finding me a broom, I don’t know what else I can do.

Frustrated tears prickle at the corners of my eyes as I begin to wonder if leaving the throne room was a mistake. At least while we were there, I could channel Danu to my Guard. Now…

No. I refuse to be the reason that we fail.

I stare at the stone with renewed urgency, searching deep inside myself for the bond to Danu. She’s there just out of reach, and I strain for her even as the sound of heavy footsteps and clanging metal draws nearer. My thoughts are so foggy. If I could just think .

“You might need this.” Lore slaps a dagger into my hand, the metal cool against my palm.

The implication—that he doesn’t think he alone can protect me—along with the knowledge that I have to do something, curl in my gut as I stare down the shadows of the army approaching the outer wall. It’s so hard to make them out in the darkness, but apparently the Fomorians have seen them as well. Shouts are already starting to echo over the city.

Then the horns sound.

Eerie, deep, and low, they reverberate across the distance. A shiver chases down my spine, and I have to drag my attention away before I become too caught up in a battle beyond my control.

The three minor royals can look out for themselves.

I reach for the nearest engraved name. There are thousands of them. Warriors we need on our side, now more than ever. Warriors who might save my mates now that we’re split up.

My wings flutter on my back, and I want to scream at my own stupidity.

The iron is on the ground… but I don’t have to be.

I take off, wings straining against the sluggishness in my veins. Titania rises with me, her own wings buzzing but producing no breeze.

The second I feel her hand in mine, I stop. We’re easily out of reach of the Fomorians below, but not quite out of range of the crossbows being pointed in our direction.

She shifts my grip to her shoulder, unstrapping a bow from across her chest and nocking an arrow before firing a perfect shot into the forehead of one of my attackers. Below us, Maeve and Mab flicker into being, joining the fight eagerly.

“Focus on your magic, dear heart,” she encourages calmly. “We have you.”

She’s right. They do. Drystan and Jaro are making good headway on the stairs, Wraith snapping and howling alongside them. The three of them carve through the Fomorians from one side while Lore engages them from the other. With my ability to connect to Danu restored, I reach out and funnel her magic their way once more, grimacing when I notice how heavily Bree is drawing on my power.

Is he wounded?

The fastest way to help him is to bring him and Caed some ghostly backup.

Trusting Titania and my mates to keep me safe, I reach inside me for Danu once more and bring all of her power out into my voice.

“Warriors of Elfhame, defend your home. Fight back the invaders. Open the gates to our allies.” I pause, struggling past Danu’s fury to offer a final mercy. “And let those who surrender live.”

For a moment, nothing happens. My heart stops, sinking like lead in my chest as I clutch the bonds, wondering if I accidentally channelled the magic from Danu straight to my Guard.

“Defend our city,” I demand a second time.

The first spirits are almost translucent, barely visible in the darkness.

I need more. I’m not summoning a few dozen fae. If I need an army, I need to draw deeper on Danu’s power.

Pushing past the iron-induced headache that persists even now, I fling my request to the Goddess.

Pain shoots down my spine and settles right behind my eyes. Golden dots sparkle across my vision as Danu gives me what I asked for without reservation, eagerly shoving what we need towards me. She knows how important this is, what’s at stake should we fail. She wants to protect her people as much as I do.

I have a horrible feeling the only limiting factor here will be my fragile body.

My head falls back as magic, the likes of which I’ve never known, shoves through me in waves.

Control? What control? I directed the power and gave the orders, but now it’s up to the spirits solidifying beneath me and the Goddess taking over from within.

I’m nothing more than a conduit. My focus is so far outside of my own skin that I can’t even feel my wings holding me up.

Goddess Incarnate? No.

I am Danu.

Danu is me.

We are one, and I am lost.