Page 69 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Ossian, in his high fae superiority, had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker. He’d mistakenly assumed Shari had remained a timid, sensitive, introverted victim after her visit to the crucible that was Elfame. And now he had a face full of liquid hellfire.

Part one of Plan C: check.

Ossian screamed, fingers clawing through the hellfire and leaving scorched red flesh behind. “What did you do to me?”

Shaking, Shari fought to summon more hellfire before Ossian’s vision returned. “I survived hell. First the cult, then your court. Now hell, and you, must survive me .”

Hellfire splashed at his feet and ignited the dry leaves with a violent whoosh.

Roaring, Ossian stomped clear of the sticky flames and summoned copper magic to smother the rest. The gemstones at his throat winked madly, healing his face and fueling his attack.

Shari made a run for it, and Daphne swung her shillelagh down as if issuing a cavalry charge. “Now, my darlings,” the druidess cried.

From the forest charged dozens of horned nanny goats.

There was a flood of white and brown fur, ribbed gray horns, and so many hooves.

It was a risky maneuver, since Ossian could subsume them with his faelight, but we only needed the surprise for a moment.

Flora took her cue and opened a hole in the earth with her green magic, disappearing underground.

Parts two and three of Plan C: check.

Here’s where it deviated to Plan D. Or rather, Plan E, after what the wight had shared with me.

“ Gwyn must reach the tree, ” I impressed upon Sawyer as he dropped to the ground. “ By any means. ”

“ Got just the spell! ” he trilled, racing off.

The Stag Man grunted as horns and hooves and stout bodies rammed into him as the herd stampeded through the clearing.

The pixies seized the chance to rip out his eyelashes or yank on his antlers—whatever they could get their tiny hands on.

Slamming my heel against the ground, I loosened the soil for Flora at the same time I shot an air current out from my hand.

Gwyn seized it with her teeth. A feral sound growled up from the depths of my throat as I forced light to bend through water and air to render her invisible.

There was performing two spells at one time and then there was this.

It required all my concentration to guide the wight to the elm tree on this puckish wind unseen.

Even in the mayhem, the Stag Man was too experienced a fighter to be overwhelmed for long. He hurled goats this way and that or blasted his way clear with copper bolts, until the grizzly charged him.

I stole the pleasure of watching Ossian’s jewel-bright eyes widen with a second of true fear before the bear crashed down on him.

But the beast was fatigued, weakened from blood loss, and buffeted aside before his jaws could clamp down on his enemy’s throat.

When the bear dropped, the striped tomcat appeared.

Sawyer had sunk his claws into the grizzly’s thick fur and hitched-hiked across the clearing with the grizzly’s charge.

As the bear had lunged for the fae king’s neck, the cat had raced up the grizzly’s spine.

Now he soared through the air in the vacant space between the Stag Man and his foes.

Ossian, eyes glinting with delight, turned his attention from the weakened Bear Prince to the closer target right in front of him.

One strong leg shot back as he braced himself in a lunge and lowered his head to impale my cat on his antlers.

“ Vox maximus! ” The scream of challenge that left my familiar’s throat created a shock wave that cratered Ossian into the ground and blasted Sawyer back twenty yards.

“Sawyer!” My concentration broke. The illusion of invisibility faltered and revealed Gwyn as I commanded the trees to rescue my cat. Bare branches wove together into a net, caught him, and slid him down to the ground. Sawyer landed on all fours, shook off the daze, and loped back towards the fight.

Hidden in my pack, Thistle growled but did not reveal herself. Not yet.

Suddenly the Stag Man shouted, not in pain, but in rage as he punched upwards with a glowing fist as Gwyn rode my air current straight towards the elm tree.

He missed. She didn’t.

The silver veins running through the furrowed bark exploded with light.

It radiated from where the pure spirit had entered the trunk, down deep into the ground and up high into its branches.

That light consumed everything until the tree standing before us was no longer brown and green but wholly silver and lit from within.

Had I not known any better, I would’ve accused my magic oak tree of abandoning me and rooting itself in the physical world.

“No!” The Stag Man scrambled to his feet. Slammed his hands against the tree.

Nothing happened. No magic flooded his veins and erased his bruises and scrapes.

It was cut off from him; the wight had seen to that.

The pure spirit had bonded with the cache, diffusing its essence into this strange In-Between space where the wholly magical and physical worlds collided.

The elm tree’s magic could very well be cut off from the rest of us too, if the faded wight succumbed to the power of the cache herself.

“ No! ” Ossian struck the tree again, demanding it yield to him.

The tree struck back this time in a burst of silver magic, launching the Stag Man clean off his feet and destroying the wall of yellow-green flames. The night dimmed only for a second before it filled with the flickering silver light of the elm tree.

The Stag Man landed hard on his side and slid across the packed earth. Friction halted him in the center of a half circle created by dozens of twinkling crystals. He lifted his head from the ground, squinting in disbelief.

“What the?—?”

“Faster, Flora,” I cried, rushing forward to block the empty half of the circle.

“I’ve only accepted my mole-people heritage for, like, a day. Gimme a break!” The garden gnome popped in and out of sight, rooting a crystal into the ground before disappearing like a spooked groundhog. Over and over at an incredible pace, she planted crystals to form a barrier.

It was the exact kind she’d made to contain me after I’d been stung by that bee and infected by the sickness leeching out of the demonic half-heart tree. It was simple magic, but highly effective.

“Too slow,” Ossian sneered, rising to his feet.

With deliberate, patronizing slowness, he lifted his foot and shifted his weight to step over the crystals before the circle could be completed.

Then he shouted in alarm, backstepping, as Ame and a ferocious lynx I’d never seen before appeared and slashed at his ankles.

The two cats each called out spells—the frozen dirt beneath his bare feet suddenly turned to sand and a spectral lynx composed of ice crystals pounced.

Ossian slapped the spectral lynx aside, crying out as the contact froze his hand, and stumbled in the sand.

The fae regained his footing and kicked out to disrupt the crystals.

From my pack, Thistle spang into the air with a cute little pop of her wings. “Hi!”

“Faelene!” the Stag Man screeched, falling back.

She whizzed this way and that, blocking his escape at every turn. Her luminous green eyes danced with delight at his terror, and she smiled great long fangs at him.

“Done!” Flora slammed the last crystal in place.

I stepped forward, shedding both my pack and Faebane as the force field rose and sealed me inside the barrier with my greatest enemy.

Exhausted, the garden gnome flopped onto her back with a breathy, “Ooof!” She lifted her head once to judge her position relative to the rapier and scooted away another foot before truly relaxing against the ground.

Faebane wasn’t required to defeat the Stag Man, but I couldn’t have him using it against me either. And the terrible noise and blinding light of our battle, however brief, would undoubtably bring his magic hunters running to his aid. My friends needed the sword more.

The Stag Man paced his half of the circle, a generous ten-foot diameter prison.

He dragged a fingernail down the barrier’s shimmering surface, testing the strength of the force field.

Light flared at the contact and trailed after his finger.

A warning against using force in an attempt to break free.

“You think this prison can hold me? A high fae, true heir to the Court of Beasts?” he sneered. “I could always burrow out like your little friend.”

There was a possibility, but I doubted it. Those crystals were twinkling madly as if they housed little flames inside. Clearly Flora had embraced her heritage as a soil gnome if she was getting that much power out of them.

“Sure,” I said conversationally, just to irk him. “And then you’d run into the roots of the elm tree, which doesn’t seem to like you anymore.”

“What do you want, Meadow? You don’t attempt to trap someone like me unless you want something.”

“First things first.” I pointed to the blue cloch at his throat. “ That belongs to me.”