All That Glows

Thirty-Two

The forest. She took them to the forest.

My magic is a wolf on a leash. I try my best to rein it in. I can’t lose control if Richard and Anabelle are still alive. But if they aren’t . . . I pause by a tree, try to regain my grip. Just thinking about Richard’s death is enough to push me into madness.

The forest is empty. Its trees are somber, dead without their spirits, just sticks wedged into the ground. I weave past their roots and trunks, hardly paying attention to where I’m going. Breena’s aura calls me, tugs me forward with invisible string.

They’re nearly a kilometer deep from the tree line, huddled in a small glade. The sight of Richard and Anabelle squatting beneath branches to get shelter from the rainfall, alive and well, saps the anger out of me. Breena stands at the clearing’s edge, rigid and alert.

I let my magic settle back. It’s clear I was wrong. Breena hasn’t betrayed us.

“Emrys?” Her call is soft, owl-like. “I know you’re here.”

I break through the snarled hedges, into the open. “What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in the cellar?” A glance at Richard and his sister tells me they made it to the archery equipment.

“The way back was cut off, so I brought them here. I tried to find Titania and the other two, but they’ve just vanished.”

“It’s a big forest,” I say.

Richard stands, trots across the mulchy earth. His shirt, a white button-up, clings like paint to his sodden chest. Water drips down his hair, sheeting his cheeks and falling down to me as he pulls me close.

“You’re alive.” He breathes into my ear.

“You sound surprised.” I wrap my arms around him, cling to his shaking self as hard as I can. It seems I can’t keep him close enough, even with our bodies pressed so fully together. I want to melt into him, to make sure I’ll never lose him again.

“It just looks so crazy over there, I wasn’t sure. . . .”

Something inside me seizes up, like a turtle scared into its shell. I pull Richard behind me. Something else is in these woods. Something close and powerful.

Breena feels it too. She curses and jumps in front of the princess, movements made of rainfall and gold.

We stand, silent and still, staring steady at the trees. I begin to feel like a deer under a hunter’s crosshairs, waiting for the trigger to hammer down.

Richard’s fingers rest on the small of my back, shooting me full of shivers. I want to turn around, kiss him. But the danger of the woods looms, clawing through crystal walls of rain. Instead I relish this connection between us, trying not to think of how it’s probably our last.

The bushes shudder, violent and hushed. My magic coils back, ready to strike at any moment. There’s no point in hiding anymore.

A lone figure pushes out of the underbrush and pauses. I squint through the downpour. Something about the creature’s aura is familiar, but untraceable.

“Mab,” Breena whispers.

And then I realize my friend is right. It’s our queen standing at the edge of the glade, an albino vision through blurring rain. Magic hums, shimmers around her like a quaking star. Something’s wrong. I should be breathing a sigh of relief, but instead my insides collapse.

“It’s you.” Breena’s voice trembles. “It’s been you all along.”

Mab’s spell leaps without warning. Sick white light slices through the storm, bursts apart the rain. Its lightning claws into Breena’s chest, ripping through her like wind tunneling through broken glass. Her spirit leaks out. It clings desperately to the edges of her body, but Mab’s spell is too strong. Breena’s essence spirals high, snags crooked branches, slips through them, leaving me.

There’s her body, bent, empty, and pelted by rain. She’s gone. Dead. I know this, but I can’t make myself believe it.

I can’t move. I can’t think of any spells to protect us. I only look at Mab and notice that, for once, her eyes have snagged a single color: cutting red, deep as murder. Her pale lips open to speak another spell of destruction.

It’s Anabelle who saves us. Her arrow flies, plowing into our huntress’s bony shoulder. The Faery queen shrieks, a sound so unearthly and deep it wakes me from my trance.

“Blodes geweald!” I spread my arms, forming a circle of protection around the royals and myself. The shield is hasty, but steady.

The queen is bleeding. Maroon stains her silver bodice, looking almost black in the lack of light. Her howling dies and she reaches down, plucks the arrow out of her muscles. Breena’s spell swims faint over the bloody arrowhead. Mab’s wound will fester with it, unable to heal for a time.

She throws the arrow onto the ground, grinds it beneath her bare heel.

“What are you doing, Mab?” I find my voice again. “What have you done?”

My queen’s face looks as it always has, a profile etched in marble. Only her eyes sputter, wavering between the humans and me. “It’s over, Emrys. For centuries we’ve been bound to them, protecting them. And what have they done to thank us for it? They’ve forgotten the old ways and created this poison.”

I see it, just behind those crimson eyes. That unsteady flicker that rose in the faces of every Old One we had to put down—the sickness. Somehow, despite all the Fae in her court, the sickness took Mab without anyone seeing. It crept through her veins, slipped through the cracks of her mind. . . . She’s lost to it now. Her magic is warped, tainted by insanity. No wonder I didn’t recognize it.

“But you swore an oath to Arthur,” I remind her. “All of us did. We can’t break it. You know that.”

She spits at the ground. Blood. I pretend not to notice the bright red spattered on long-dead leaves. Despite her immense age and power, Mab is weakening, unraveling so close to the city. If I can keep her talking long enough . . .

“My oath to Arthur was in a different age. . . . We were vanguards once. Now we’re only slaves. I knew I couldn’t break the oath without consequences. But there are loopholes. Oh yes, there are always loopholes.” The vicious, lusty glint steals through her eyes again. “If the crown were destroyed—if Arthur’s line and lineage was completely decimated—then we would be free of our bonds. But it wasn’t just about freedom. The problem still remained. How could we survive without the blood magic? There were ways that power could be harnessed, ways we didn’t dare try to take back in the golden age, when mortals held magic of their own. Still, they existed. Merlin never told us much about Arthur’s magic, yet I knew that death transferred power, just as birth did. It was only when I remembered this that I decided to kill Edward.”

Keep her talking. Let time do its work. I take a deep breath. “But how? How did you get to Edward without anyone seeing? I was with you the day he died. . . .”

A smile, crazed and satisfied, slips across the queen’s face. “It was no easy task, trying to assassinate a monarch without the court catching wind of it. I knew they would try to stop me. They’re still too blind, too loyal to the promise we so carelessly gave those centuries ago. But the soul feeders were more than willing. They even decided to play nice with one another once I offered them a place in the new kingdom, the Albion without mortals. So I stayed in the Highlands, keeping court while the Banshees and Green Women did their work. It wasn’t until the Banshee killed Muriel and King Edward that I realized that only the monarch’s killer can partake in the blood magic—another thing Merlin refused to tell us. The Banshee took it all for herself, but I was still more powerful. I killed her and started again, from scratch. It was Richard’s blood I needed—and I knew this time I had to slay him by my own hand.

“But how to get to Richard? I sent a Green Woman, protected by layers of my own magic, to fetch him—but you proved too strong. I realized that if I wanted to get to Richard, I would have to distract you. So I tried turning your suspicions toward others of the Guard. I knew that if you were looking for a traitor, you wouldn’t see what was happening right under your nose.”

I watch, hard-eyed as her blood blooms, staining the beaded lengths of her sleeves and bodice. Mab played me. She played me well.

“Yet you seemed to be so determined on keeping Richard in the city, where I couldn’t reach him. I had to set the stage: create the illusion of a safe haven. Windsor was the perfect place. All I had to do was procure Herne’s permission to use the land . . . to let as many immortals in as I pleased, be they Frithemaeg or soul feeders. I knew too that if I demanded Herne to help you he would rebel. I counted too much on his pride perhaps . . . for I see you’ve found a way around that. No matter.

“Once Jaida and Cari found you spying, I knew I had to move. The soul feeders did their best to crowd you out. It worked.”

“So you’re going to kill them? All of them?” My voice shakes, a horrible mix of anger and fear. How could Mab, the queen I gave myself to, served so loyally for years, be capable of this? The madness must reach even deeper than I imagined.

It’s in this moment that an irredeemable knowledge settles on me, crushes with its weight. We’re dead. Any hope, any thought I had of reasoning with Mab, wilts under the insanity in her eyes. And the queen, with centuries upon centuries of power, could destroy me in a heartbeat. My magic won’t be enough to save us.

But I must be strong, for Richard. For Anabelle. I cannot let them die afraid.

“The mortals will keep taking until nothing is left, Emrys. Their short existence is tainted with misery and mire. What could you ever want to do with one?”

Her words are bitter wormwood, impossibly harsh to bear.

“There’s beauty in them too,” I say, though I know none of my words will change her mind. Time is the only thing we have left now—I’m stretching, grasping for every granule I can get.

“So it’s love, is it?” Mab sneers. All at once I see her ugliness, lurking in the wrinkle of her nose, the leer of perfect, white teeth. “And you, of all Fae. I had the most faith in you. You had a gift—a talent for magic! Everything would have been much easier if you’d listened to me.”

“There are other ways to do this. We can come out of hiding. Richard wants our worlds to merge. We can be together again.” I raise my hands, a small, hopeless offering.

“They’ll drive us out. Their technology will spread. It won’t stop until it covers everything. Our strength is a thing of the old days. But the blood magic will bring it back.” The red of her irises comes alight, flaming with twisted desires. Behind them, I see visions of death. “Oh yes. Their blood will make us powerful again, Emrys. We can wipe out the plague that’s infested our lands. Albion will be whole again.”

I edge closer to the border of my shield. Always I’m aware of Richard and Anabelle behind me, breathing hot on my ears.

No matter what happens, stay behind me. I’ll hold off her spells. For as long as I can.

Richard jerks. He’s received my warning.

“I won’t let you kill them, I can’t.”

Her laugh slides like a serpent through the raindrops, cruel and cold. “And what, little youngling, do you think you can do to me? Your magic is paltry. Nothing.” Mab spits the words.

I try not to think of how right she is as I brace myself.

“If only you’d had a chance to grow. Such a pity. You had real promise.”

Mab’s first whispered curse lashes out like a bullwhip. The light of my shield shatters, pours down to the ground in a thousand useless pieces. I feel Anabelle cringe behind me, trying to grow smaller. I steal a glance at Richard. His hazel eyes are set, his jaw locked, determined. He clutches something at his side. I can’t get a clear look at it.

As soon as the shield fails, I cast a counterspell. Mab swats it aside with ease, growling at the pain of her still-bleeding shoulder. Another curse hisses out of her, poisons the air of the glade. I face the spell full on. It stops, just barely, under my resistance.

“Lie down and I promise I’ll give you an easy death,” she mocks.

I’d counted on the sickness to gut her away from the inside, but it’s not working fast enough. Mab is still stronger and she knows it. Until now she’s been playing, a cat batting about a scrabbling, defiant mouse. As soon as she wants to get serious, we’re all dead.

I know what I have to do: go for the cat’s throat.

As soon as I jump forward, you and Anabelle have to run. Understand? I tense, fill myself with everlasting breath. I love you, Richard. Never forget that.

Mab is preparing another spell when I lunge, throwing myself at the side opposite her wounded shoulder. She has no time to raise her gimp arm. We fall into the withered leaves, her spell unfinished. Somewhere through the drumming rain and sizzling of magic, I hear the royals’ footsteps, slogging and frantic. I have to hold Mab off long enough—give them time to escape.

Although Mab’s stunned, she’s quick to react. Magic lights her skin, making it acidic to touch. I push through the blinding pain, dig my blazing fingers into her wounded shoulder. Even with Breena’s spell, the arrow’s hole has almost closed. I shove through the clotting blood.

Her shriek is worse than a Banshee’s. Something bursts inside my left ear, but I keep ripping, digging, tearing. Desecrating the human body Mab loves too much to leave. The beauty she clings to, the physicality she forced on us, is my last weapon. My only, final hope is to damage this vessel so severely that the royals will be far off when she kills me.

“We’ve had our turn, Mab.” My scream rises above hers, climbs endlessly through this cathedral of trees and rain. “We’ve drunk so deeply of life that we’ve forgotten what it means. Death is inevitable.”

Mab’s good arm swings up. Flaring, chalky skin torches my face, making my world white with anguish. For a moment, I wonder if death has finally struck, but then I feel the blood and tendons beneath my fingers.

My work isn’t done.

She screams, strikes me again. This blow is harder, filled with sinister magic. I land face-first into the moldy foliage. My vision is still blurry—a hazy, unfinished puzzle. I scramble through mud and leaves, sliding toward the closest tree.

Somewhere behind me, Mab growls against the pain. The earth wrinkles with sounds as she picks herself up and crawls toward me.

I wrap my arms around the tree, skin digging hard into its scaly bark. There’s no Dryad here to comfort me, only rough wood and emptiness. I try to think of Richard instead of the terror rising up, pure and paralyzing.

“How could you love him?” Mab rasps. She knows she’s winning or she wouldn’t have wasted her words.

I let go of the tree and turn. The queen stands, a mess of silver, white, and blood against my poor sight. She’s a fallen star in the wood’s womb-like dark. Alien bright.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Don’t patronize me.” Mab shuffles closer, her features sharpening beneath my gaze. Years of suppressed emotions mottle her face, rot her like the Green Women. “I’ve seen it all before. The loss of reason, the stupid sacrifice of magic, the heartache. Just like Guinevere and the others . . . Loving a mortal only brings suffering. Even if you did end up with His Highness and get everything you wanted, what did you think would happen? What’s your ending?”

My throat catches. Something about the forest behind Mab isn’t right. We aren’t alone.

“I can’t live without him,” I say, pushing through the thickness in my throat. Breena’s broken body lies in the edges of my clearing vision. The sight of it brings pain, searing and deep. Mab killed one of the only things that might have made me stay.

“Then you won’t live.” Mab’s high, hysterical voice plummets into icebound malice.

Something flashes in the darkness—not a spell, but Mab’s own pallid light reflected back on her. The long, narrow mirror of a blade comes down, bursts through the Faery queen’s stomach. Blood, bright and fresh, cracks like a spiderweb across her bodice. The queen gasps when it pulls out of her. Her spell, half spun, runs back through the sword.

Richard falls with a silence far more horrible than any scream. His hair blends into the ground’s mush of mud and decay, his mouth gaping wide from Mab’s caustic magic.

“No!” No! Not him. Not him.

I dive into the leaves next to Richard, press against his warmth. The blue of cold and shock creeps over his face; his lips lined with red that should be on the inside. But the spell didn’t tear all life away. There’s a flutter deep within him, fainter than the beat of a butterfly’s wing.

“Live!” I wrap an arm around his chest, trying to feel the extent of the damage.

He gasps at my word—a wretched sound, filled with pain. I can tell, just by this one noise, that I’m losing him.

“Just hold on, Richard. I’ll fix you!” I sit up and look around, frantic, for anything that might help. All I see is Mab, shuddering a few meters away. The sword has only damaged her, its wound already healing. It will take a strong spell to break a spirit as old as her, magic that’s beyond my strength.

“Embers.” Richard’s rasp brings me back. His eyelids flicker. He’s struggling to stay with me.

I push the hair out of his face. Raindrops mixed with his sweat slick down my palm. “You have to stay with me. I can’t lose you now.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He tries to smile, but it’s too much. The curl of his lips withers, like it was never even there.

I lean even closer to him. Our lips touch. His are motionless. I press gently into them, grabbing desperately for any signs of life. His pulse quivers beneath paper-thin skin. Beat by beat, it’s slowing.

Then I taste the blood, sanguine and hot, reaching into me with a slow, salty burn. My lips, my mouth, everything is on fire. Magic. Magic that isn’t mine or Mab’s. An old force, rusty but powerful, now inside me.

I pull away from him, wiping my wrist against my lips. It comes away, smeared with a thin film of Richard’s blood. Mab got what she wanted. I tremble, let my hands fall. With all the crown’s magic before me, I can do nothing but cry.

Something moves. My heart jerks, certain that it’s one of Richard’s limbs calling me back to him. Instead my eyes lock onto Mab. Her stomach wound has healed enough for her to crawl across the forest floor. Inch by inch, she’s heading toward Richard. I arch over his body like a rabid animal. The queen sees the wildness in my stare and blinks.

“Give it up, Emrys. He’s gone. At least make his death worth something, let me take his blood. . . .” She reaches out, her hand gnarled and wanting.

Anger and something much more profound surges through me. Power that isn’t mine—Richard’s blood right—mixes with my magic. It shoots through my veins like a special fire, waiting to be lit for centuries.

“I won’t let you kill the others too.” I seize control of my shaky limbs and start composing the spell.

Mab sees the curse weaving together, piece by piece. She sees her own doom rising before her.

“Think of all the years I loved and protected you,” she grovels, eyes desperate with horror. They’re clear now, blue as Breena’s were. “I was the one who taught you, who made you what you are.”

I say nothing, all of my attention trapped inside this spell. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever created before, with a hundred more intricacies than the one that destroyed the Banshee. I knit it together, looping all of the stitches into place.

“Those days are clearly over,” I say, all emotion drained out of my voice. Finally the spell is ready. I hold it between two palms—a horrible, beautiful thing, flames glinting with the transience of opals.

“Mercy . . .” The word comes out in a pitiful whimper.

“Sometimes justice is mercy.”

I look straight into her stare and let the spell fall. It peels at the Faery queen, like a knife paring an apple down to its core. I refuse to look away, even when the strips of flesh fall from her bones. Her eyes stay on me, phasing through every color, constant in their hatred and pain. I stare back until they’re gone, swept away with everything else. Nothing is left. Not even dust.

The curse’s light dies, plunging the clearing into darkness. I bend close to the ground feeling for Richard’s arm. My fingers find his. They’re strangely cool, unwelcoming. He’s beyond my magic now.

I find his side and fit myself against it. There’s no light heaving of his chest, no warmth or softness to press against. I lay there, staring past shadows and raindrops into the space beyond. Death is overwhelming in this clearing. It pins me down against the leaves, holds me hostage. With all my heart I want to join it, but I can’t even find the strength to move.