Chapter Seventeen
There was something wrong with my head.
No, no, it was my ankle that was hurt, a bright, stabbing ache. I liked some pain in battle—gave me an edge. But this was off-putting. Nauseating. It hurt.
But I couldn’t concentrate on it.
There was something wrong with my head.
It had been hit, a few times, against a very unforgiving railing, and you had to give it to those old shipbuilders who had put this place together. The captain had some of the guys from the docks work on the house, and damn, if they didn’t know how to build a railing! Nobody was falling off this ship, nope, nope.
There might be something wrong with my head.
I blinked and there was a tree limb in front of me, as big around as my body and covered in hoary old bark, like it had been there forever, only I didn’t think so. Because a blast of dirt and rock came with it, like somebody had just unloaded a dump truck on me. It made me cough and gag, because I’d had my mouth open, and now on top of everything else, I could barely breathe.
And then some apples fell on my head.
Probably not a good thing.
There was already something wrong with it.
But at least the limb seemed to have taken out a couple more rock creatures, like a bark-covered fist shooting out of the kitchen. Where I guess the apple logs had sprouted again, and slammed into two assailants I hadn’t noticed until what was basically a sideways tree smashed through the middle of them. And sent a crap ton of fruit bouncing down the stairs.
I just lay there, watching it go, because I couldn’t do anything else. The limb was lying across me like it meant business, and anyway, my brain didn’t seem to be taking orders right now. But I wasn’t too concerned, and not just because of the comfortable darkness that kept trying to eat at my vision. But because of the crashes and yells and renewed clang, clang, clang of metal on stone.
The fey had arrived, lighting up the hallway as if dawn had come in a moment. I flashed on that scene with Gandalf showing up with the Rohirrim at Helm’s Deep. Because even half-dead, I am a huge fucking nerd.
“To the king,” I whispered, laughing, and then couldn’t remember why.
There was something wrong with my head.
And this time, I could name it, because it was weirdly like static, only no.
Static didn’t hurt this much.
I think I screamed. I’m not sure, since all I could hear was that awful white noise, but I felt like screaming—and rending and tearing and stabbing whoever was repeatedly sticking an ice pick in my fucking ear. But there was no one there.
Except for Caedmon, who was looking slightly weirded out.
“What?” I said, as the static retreated, and watched him blink at me. It seemed to take a long time. But maybe not, because then he was gone again.
I heard the front doors slam open, and peered over the tree limb to see everything start to get sucked out. Or blown out, because it seemed like the wind was coming from in here. I didn’t know. I just knew that pieces of wood and other debris, even some of the smaller rocks, went flying. And disintegrating, in the case of the latter, as they sailed through the air outside. I could see them through the transom, puffing away into nothingness above the streetlights, like dirty fireworks.
Big dirty fireworks, because a few of the creatures were getting blown out, too.
It looked like some of the fey had tiny whirlwinds in their hands that they were throwing at the rock monsters, but obviously not.
There was something wrong with my head.
“They can’t hold their form too far off the ground,” Caedmon yelled, because he was back again, his long blond hair whipping around his face.
I nodded.
That explained why they hadn’t just formed upstairs to begin with.
Good to know, I thought, dizzily.
And then I blacked out, because there was something wrong with my head.
I woke up on the kitchen table, screaming in pain. “Be still!” Caedmon said, holding my ankle and looking harassed.
Normally, it would have been funny to see him with his shining fall of hair a frazzled mess, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and his face red.
But not when his hands were red, too. Because it looked like I hadn’t been the first one on the table tonight, and wouldn’t be the last. There were several battered and bloody fey sitting on stools, their heads resting against walls or cabinets, as if they were too tired to hold them up. It looked like the manlikans hadn’t gone down without a fight.
And then somebody else started screaming, and he sounded worse off than me.
“I said, be still!” Caedmon snapped, but I barely heard him because it was back again, that terrible static that sounded like a swarm of bees.
Angry bees.
Angry stinging bees, inside my skull.
Caedmon appeared in my vision, grabbing the sides of my head, saying something. It looked like it might be important, and felt like he was pouring power into me, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the bees. They were making my body jerk and strain from their constant stinging, dozens and then hundreds of them, all at once. I tried to read his lips, until my field of vision was overlaid with static, too, like an old-fashioned TV on the fritz, where sometimes you got a clear picture, and other times it was just snow.
Stop it! I told myself. I’d had enough shocks for one day. I didn’t need my brain deciding to break a little more for no apparent reason.
Only there was a reason; I could feel it.
I just didn’t know what it was.
And then I was screaming some more, because it hurt that bad.
I awoke to light and pain and noise, which wasn’t unusual. And to a glowing being bending over me, holding my head between his hands, which was. I realized I was screaming and stopped, caught his shoulder and swung my legs off the side of a table before pushing him against some counters.
He looked surprised, but not as much as I was.
What . . . was he?
It was hard to tell. He glowed so brightly that he was difficult to see. Liquid light, white-hot and yellow, outlined his body, and boiled through the middle in a shimmering dance of—
Gah! I didn’t know. I couldn’t look directly at him, not for long, and even when I did it was useless. I’d never seen anything like him.
I glanced to the side, quick flicks of the eyes, trying to see where I was, and so that he had no opportunity to break away. Not that he was trying. He was simply standing there, permitting the scrutiny, because he knew it didn’t matter.
I couldn’t take him.
The realization struck deep in my stomach, like a thudding blow. It had been a long time, a very long time, since I had felt outmatched. I could be bested by numbers or taken down by trickery. But sheer power, in one being?
That . . . was rare. And even when I’d felt it, I’d never been sure of the outcome. Battle is fickle; the strongest doesn’t always win. A thousand things go into it: strategy, patience, experience, determination. The outcome was always in question—
Until now.
I couldn’t take him. I felt it resonate in my bones, with an assurance it had never had before, felt my lips pull back from my teeth, in anger and denial. What was he?
Not alone, I thought, because there were others in the room. Scattered about, all of them tense, unhappy, wary. And glowing softly in my mental landscape.
Fey.
They were wounded but on their feet, with weapons out, despite the fact that one could barely hold a knife. He was shaking, imperceptible to a human, but I saw. Ready to fall with barely a strike. But the others were combat ready, despite their wounds, and still more ran through the door.
These were almost untouched, with only a few cuts and bruises that showed up as dark patches in my mind, not even enough to slow them down. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t attacking. They were looking to the one I held for guidance, as if they weren’t sure what to do.
And for the first time in a long time, neither was I.
“One of my people is injured,” the creature told me. “Will you let us help him?”
The request was quiet, measured, calm. The blinding energy of a moment ago was gone, drawing back inside him. He looked like a fey, I realized.
He wasn’t one.
But he wasn’t attacking, either, and he’d drawn his power down. I hesitated, feeling strangely off-balance. He wasn’t even looking at me now, but at something behind me, near the door to the outside.
Where a fey lay on the floor, I realized, arching up in pain and screaming.
I didn’t know why. There were no wounds of consequence on this one. He seemed to be—
And then I understood, when something hit me, too, like a wave of acid.
It hurt—God, it hurt—like nothing I’d ever felt before. And that was saying something, I thought, staggering against the counter. Caedmon was there, grabbing me before I hit the floor, holding on while I writhed and screamed. I wasn’t usually the screaming type; I’d trained myself out of it years ago, because it doesn’t up your chances of survival if you broadcast to the enemy both the fact that you’re wounded and exactly where you are.
But this time, I couldn’t seem to stop.
And then it cut out, as abruptly as it had come, leaving me panting and bent over. And then straightening up and staring wildly about, knife in hand. But all I saw were confused-looking fey.
“Dory?” Caedmon said carefully, concern in his voice, because yeah. I was acting crazy.
With good reason, I thought, still trying to spot the attacker.
Because there was one. Something the fey had missed. Something I had missed.
“Someone’s here,” I heard myself say, and it was my voice, but lower, deadlier, almost unrecognizable. I saw a nearby guard’s eye twitch, ’cause yeah. Not bored anymore, huh?
Neither was I.
“Dory.” That was Claire, getting up from where she’d been kneeling by a fey. Soini, I thought, recognizing the baby fey, who didn’t look like he was enjoying his vacation, all of a sudden. He was white-faced and panting, and looking like I felt. For a moment, we just stared at each other.
And then Claire was touching my arm, and the cool feel of her power was swamping me, trying to soothe, to help—
“No!” I jerked back. That wasn’t the kind of help I needed.
I flinched, suddenly back in control, but I hadn’t been for a moment. I knew that, even though it felt like no time had passed, because there was a knife in my hand, and I was suddenly in a different position. It was disconcerting, confusing. I took control and kept it until the job was done. I didn’t slip like that; I never slipped!
My back hit the counter and I snarled, my eyes flicking around the room, trying to assess the threat. But for the first time in memory, I couldn’t do it. Not for all of the ones right in front of me, the ones I could see.
Much less the one I couldn’t.
The one that was sending waves of excruciating pain that were causing my brain to malfunction. Or to switch consciousnesses in a desperate attempt to ward it off, I realized. Flipping between me and my twin whenever one of us became overwhelmed.
Which was happening every few minutes now, and I didn’t even know what I was fighting!
“Dory—”
That was the woman called Claire, my twin’s friend. She was standing nearby, beside the fallen fey. There were several more fey behind her, well armed and outside her field of vision, but she didn’t seem to care. Perhaps she didn’t have to be careful; she was powerful, too. I could see them, the eyes behind the eyes, staring out at me, curious, wary, strange.
But not afraid.
Like I was, I suddenly realized.
And blinked at the shock of it.
I was afraid, and with cause. I could take the fey; I could possibly even take the dangerous creature staring at me from behind Claire’s eyes, should it choose to attack. I could not take the glowing one. And I could not even see the other to assess its power.
But I could feel it building. A pervasive heaviness in the air, an electric frisson up my spine, a metallic taste in my mouth—not like blood, but like I was biting onto a sheet of metal, chewing on foil. It made my teeth hurt and my brain ache and it seemed to be coming from everywhere, all directions at once.
I’d never felt anything like it.
I realized that there was a sound issuing from my lips, and it was unfamiliar, too. Pained, fearful, dangerous. Like an animal that knows it is beaten, but will fight to the death anyway. We might die, but it would be with our teeth buried in someone’s throat!
And then the attack increased, and I screamed, screamed as I never had, my brain feeling like it would explode in my head.
“What is happening?” Claire screamed, although I could barely hear her. Because other people were screaming, too: Soini, on the floor, convulsing like his spine would break, and someone else—
I abruptly realized it was me.
I cut it off, breathing heavily, and mentally slapped myself.
Get a grip!
“Dory?” That was Caedmon, while Claire stared at me, her eyes wide. And then she snapped orders at the fey, who rushed to help hold Soini while she forced some black, horrible-smelling draught down his throat.
It must have tasted as bad as it smelled, because he fought it, but she won. And it seemed to do him good. It knocked him out, almost instantly, and I watched the long body relax into sleep.
“I have more,” she told me, looking up, but I shook my head.
“Dory. Who is here?” Caedmon asked, his hand on his sword hilt.
“I don’t know.” I sounded hoarse, probably from all the screaming. I shook myself and started moving around the room, searching for some hint, some glimpse. Which would have been easier if I knew what I was looking for.
And if the static would stop and let me think!
The static.
“This way.” I still didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that every time I got closer to the door to the hall, even by a single step, the static grew worse. Whatever this was, it didn’t want me out there. And that meant—
And then I was running, slamming through the door, my newly healed ankle throbbing, my heart pounding. Because I’d held the stairs, somehow, against every advance, but there was no one on them now. Just pockmarked holes trying to heal, all other signs of the battle scoured clean, even the usual layer of dust still gone. Leaving an open path, straight up to—
I hit the stairs, practically flying, and was knocked back by a wave of pain so breathtaking it was like a physical blow. And the annoying static in front of my eyes was suddenly a blizzard. It would have stopped me, all on its own, except that I knew this place so well I could have navigated it blind.
Which I almost was by the time we reached the second floor, where Olga’s snores—and how the hell had she slept through all that?—echoed strangely in my distorted senses. They were as loud as a freight train one second, and almost silent the next. Like the corridor flickering in and out of view.
“It’s here,” I said, and it was a growl that time, full-on and feral.
“Check them!” Caedmon snapped, and I felt rather than saw guards stream by me. I heard Olga’s snores pause, and then continue, and a fey call out that they couldn’t wake her. Heard people tearing through my and Claire’s rooms, careless in their hurry. Something shattered against the floor, knocked off by an untucked elbow, but there were no warning cries.
They hadn’t found it yet.
And then someone yelled, and I sprang forward, only to be hit by an avalanche of agony, all at once. It was staggering—literally, I would have fallen if someone hadn’t grabbed me. And excruciating, leaving me writhing in that someone’s arms for a second. But only a second, because the shouts were coming from the boys’ room.
“Let me go!” I snarled, and tore away, into a blizzard of static and pain and noise.
That suddenly cut out, all at once, as soon as I crossed the threshold. It left me gasping and staring around: at Aiden, huddled against a wall, blue eyes wide and terrified; at Stinky, standing protectively in front of him, a toy sword clutched in his fist; at Gessa, slumped on the floor, unmoving.
And at Ymsi, blood smeared and dazed looking, standing over the small troll.
Who was still in the trundle, his eyes closed, his face almost peaceful.
Except for the dagger sticking out of his heart.