Radiant Shadows. Melissa Marr
sped to them carrying words of sudden deaths or horrific accidents.
The Wild Hunt rides.
As Ani looked over the assembling Hounds, the green of their eyes and the clouds of their breath were clear. Wolves filled the room where the steeds were not. They would run between the hooves of the steeds, a roil of fur and teeth. Steed and wolf all waited for their Gabriel’s word to begin, to run, to chase those foolish enough to attract their attention. Terror built and filled the air with a prestorm charge. Those not belonging to the Hunt would have to struggle to breathe. Mortals on the nearby streets would cringe, scurry into their dens, or turn into other alleys. If they stayed, they’d not see the true face of the Hunt, but explain it away—earthquake? trains? storms? street fights?—with the willful ignorance mortals clung to so fiercely. They didn’t often stay; they ran. It was the order of things: prey runs, and predators pursue.
Her father, her Gabriel, strode through the room assessing them.
Ani felt the stroke of icy fingers on her skin as they prepared to ride. She bit down on her lip to keep from urging her father to sound the call. Her knuckles whitened as she clenched the edge of the wooden wall beside her. She looked at their horrible beauty and shivered.
If they were mine … I’d belong.
Then Gabriel was beside her.
“You are my pup, Ani.” Gabriel cupped her cheek in his massive hand. “To be worthy of you, any Hound would have to be willing to face me. He’d need to be strong enough to lead them.”
“I want to lead them,” she whispered. “I want to be their Gabrielle.”
“You’re too mortal to hold control of them.” Gabriel’s eyes were monstrous. His skin was the touch of terror, of death, of nightmares that were Un-Named. “And too much mine to not be with the Hunt. I’m sorry.”
She held his gaze. Something feral inside of her understood that this was why she couldn’t live with Rabbit: her brother wasn’t as fierce as her father was. Tish wasn’t. Ani desperately wanted to be. Like the rest of the Hounds mounting their steeds, Ani knew that Gabriel could kill her if she disobeyed. It was a restraint she needed: it kept her closer to following rules.
“I can’t take the Hunt from you”—she flashed her teeth at her father—“yet. Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
“Makes me proud that you want to,” he said.
For a moment, the pride in her father’s eyes was the sum of her world. She belonged. For tonight, she was included in the pack. He made it so.
If only I always was.
But there were no unclaimed steeds, and her mortal blood meant she’d never be strong enough to become Gabriel’s successor, never be truly Pack.
A taste of belonging …
It wasn’t enough, not truly, but it was something.
Then a howl unlike anything else in this world or the next came to his lips, and the rest of the pack echoed it. She echoed it.
Gabriel tossed her atop Chela’s steed and growled, “We ride.”
Devlin stepped into the High Queen’s private gardens. The ground under his sandals hummed when his foot touched it. Sometimes, he considered telling Sorcha that he noticed the barely perceptible alarms she’d set. With rare exceptions, he’d devoted eternity to Sorcha, but she was a creature of logic and order. She knew—and Bananach did—that he made the choice to serve Faerie every day, every hour, every moment. The only thing that kept him from choosing to align himself with Sorcha’s antithesis was his own willpower.
And affection.
For all of her adherence to logic, the Unchanging Queen cared for him. Of that, he was certain.
“My Queen?” He walked toward her, waiting a heartbeat between steps to see if she’d let vines tangle his path or if she’d remake a passageway for him.
She glanced his way, and the undergrowth vanished in a narrow corridor. Briars reached from plants that were typically without thorns, tracing dozens of thin scratches on his arms and feet. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious strike at him: the world around them bent to her will, but Sorcha had long since stopped noticing. It was like noticing that her heart beat. It simply did, and if her will injured others, so be it.
It’s not personal.
“I can’t see him,” Sorcha whispered. “He’s out there in the world. What if he’s hurt? What if he’s in danger?”
“You’d know,” Devlin assured, as he had every day since Seth left. “You’d know if he was hurt.”
“How? How would I know? I’m blind.” The Queen of Order looked far from reasonable. Her skirt had tears in the hem. Her hair, usually as vibrant as liquid fire, was pale and snarled at the ends. Since Seth, the newly made faery, had gone back to the mortal world, Sorcha was increasingly not herself.
“I need to know that Seth is safe.” She folded her arms over her chest. Her voice steadied. “I see her, the Summer Queen, and he is not with her. That’s why he went back. Her. She should treat him better.”
Misty figures formed in front of Sorcha. Somewhere in the mortal world, faeries were unaware that she was watching them. In the haze of the garden, Devlin stood near his queen and watched the faeries who were the focus of Sorcha’s attention. Unless the faeries’ or mortals’ threads twined too closely with her own thread, Sorcha could see into their lives.
The Summer Queen, Aislinn, stood in front of a fountain, talking to one of the water fey, Aobheall. In the background, the land flourished even though fall had come. In the patch of earth the Summer regents had claimed, Winter wouldn’t ever reign again. Shrubs bloomed out of season, and faeries danced over green earth. Aislinn laughed and sat down on the edge of the fountain. One hand idly traced patterns on the surface of the water, and in its wake, water lilies blossomed.
Aobheall lazed in the fountain like a half-bared Grecian statue come to life. The water streamed around her in a small waterfall. “I think that dress is the one you wore just a few moons ago. We could shop, or”—Aobheall leaned forward—“get a dress made for you.”
“I don’t know.” The Summer Queen glanced behind her to where several members of her Summer Court were weaving flowers into garlands. “Does it really matter what I wear?”
Aobheall frowned. “It should matter, Aislinn.”
“I know … and … choose happiness, right?” A too-bright smile lit the Summer Queen’s face. The Summer Queen had reigned for barely more than a mortal year, but during that time she’d had to deal with intercourt conflicts, being stabbed, losing a friend to the Dark Court, and trying to make sense of centuries of rivalry, allegiances, and old angers. An illogical urge to send her good advisors flared to life in Devlin, but he quashed it: the Summer Queen was not his priority.
Sorcha jabbed a finger toward the misty tableau, sending ripples through the image. “How can she be happy if he’s not?”
“She chooses to pursue happiness for the good of her court,” he pointed out. “It’s not the same as true happiness. You can’t fault her for trying to keep her court strong.”
Sorcha obviously disagreed: thorns continued to grow, weaving together like threads on a loom until they formed a daunting barrier between Sorcha and Devlin.
“Tell me, Brother.” She sounded fragile, not at all like the confident queen she’d been since the moment Devlin had first drawn breath.
“Summer is happy by nature,” he reminded, but even as he said it, he