Swallowing Darkness

Chapter Six

The mare moved under me, her fiery hooves eating up the distance. The muscles in her back and the feel of her mane in my hands were real, and solid, but the rest of it... the rest of it was dreamlike. I wasn't certain if the feeling of unreality was what it would have always been to ride with the hunt, if it was the shock of all that had happened, or if it was my mind's way of protecting me from sights that should have destroyed my mortal mind.

Sholto moved up beside me on his own pale horse. His hair flowed behind him like a shining cloak, all white with hints of yellow, as if bits of sunlight were held in his hair, as if that hot, yellow light could be ensnared in the pale beauty of his hair.

The February cold pressed around us, caressing my bare arms and feet, but my breath did not fog in the cold. My skin did not chill. It was as if the cold were a sensation, but it had no power over me. The smoke that flared from my mare's nostrils wasn't from the cold. I remembered tales of horses in the wild hunt with flaming eyes and hellfire spilling from their nose and mouth. We could have been riding true nightmares, black and full of fire and terror, but something about my magic had turned the hunt ever so slightly to something a little less automatically frightening.

If you saw black horses that breathed fire riding down on you, you'd be convinced of evil intent, but if you saw white horses spilling toward you, even with eyes that glowed, and a little green fire at the hooves, would you automatically assume evil, or would you pause and marvel at the beauty? We rode the sky as if the Milky Way had brightened and turned into beings that could flow and travel the darkness.

I looked behind us, and found that there were other horses, barebacked, riderless, but spilling like seafoam at our backs. There were also hounds, white with red marks, like all faerie hounds, except that these had glowing eyes, and they were bulkier than the slim ones that had come to my hand only a few weeks ago. Those had looked more like greyhounds, but not these dogs. These were huge mastiffs, except for their colors, and they glowed against the darkness like some white ghost dotted with glowing red, like spilled blood across the purity of their coats.

The name for them came to me, with a scent of roses and herbs. Hounds of the Blood, they were hounds of the blood. Bloodhounds were named not for their bloodthirstiness, but for the fact that they were once only owned by nobles — noble blood. But the hounds that rode at our backs, that began to spill around the legs of the horses, were named blood for other reasons. They rode only for blood, and the gentleness of bloodhounds was not something that this pack would understand. That knowledge filled me with a fierce pleasure.

There were things behind the hounds and horses, shapes that writhed and boiled with bodies and limbs that were nothing you would ever see outside of the worst nightmare you can imagine. I stared into the abyss of things that I'd been told not to look at, for fear that one glance would destroy my mind. But those shapes had been black and gray, and these shone like crystal and pearls and diamonds in a radiance that burned from within and just behind them. We trailed a shining cloud of light like the tail of a comet.

I had a moment to wonder — if some telescope did pick us up, would that be what their human mind would make of us? Or would they see a falling star? Or would they see nothing? Glamour didn't always work around cameras and man-made technology. I said a prayer that we did not accidentally blast some poor astronomer's mind. I wished them well, as they gazed at the night sky. I wished everyone well, save one person tonight. I realized that I meant that. I wanted Cair dead for the death of our grandmother. The king's attack on me wasn't important to me anymore. I understood then that I was truly a part of the hunt. I was moved by the vengeance I had called down. We would hunt Cair for kin slaying, and then... then we would see.

It was strangely peaceful, this tunnel vision. No grief existed here. No doubts. No distractions. It was comforting, in a sociopathic sort of way. And even that thought could not frighten me. I'd heard the term "instrument of vengeance," but I had not truly understood what it meant until now.

Sholto reached out to me, across the space between our steeds. I hesitated, then I reached for him, my other hand still locked in my horse's mane. The moment our fingers touched, I remembered myself, a little. I understood the true danger of riding with the hunt then — you could forget yourself. You could forget everything but righteous vengeance, and spend a lifetime listening for the words from some mortal, or immortal, mouth. Oathbreakers, kin slayers, traitors; so much to punish. It would be a simpler life than the one I was leading. To ride forever, to exist only to destroy, and to have no other choices to make. Some saw the riders with the hunt as cursed, but I understood now that it wasn't how the riders saw themselves all those centuries ago. They'd stayed with the hunt because they wished to, because it felt better than going back.

Sholto's hand in mine reminded me that there were reasons not to let the hunt consume me. I thought of the babies I carried in my body for the first time since the ceiling and wall of the hospital had melted away. But it was a distant thought. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid that I might die this night and the babes with me. Part of me felt untouchable, and part of me felt as if nothing, absolutely nothing mattered as much as vengeance. Nothing.

Sholto squeezed my hand as the rhythms of our horses made our arms rise and fall between us. He looked at me with eyes gone to yellow and gold fire, but there was worry in his face too. He was King of the sluagh, the last wild hunt of faerie. He had been the huntsman before, perhaps with less magic at his back, but still, he knew the sweetness of vengeance. He knew the simplicity of the hunt, and the almost seductive whisper of it.

His hand in mine, the look on his face, brought me back from the edge. His touch kept me me. Part of me resented it. Because with me came the first whisper of grief returned. Gran, Frost, my father, Doyle injured. So much death, so much loss, and the chance for more to come. That was the true terror of love, that you could love with your whole heart, your whole soul, and lose both.

We began to spill toward the ground, in a sweep of light that cast shadows below like that of some great, magical plane. But we did not touch the ground as the plane would have had to; we skimmed above it. We wove over treetops, and across fields. Animals scattered before us. I felt the hounds flinch, and tried to give chase, but Sholto spoke one word, and they stayed with us. We were not after rabbits tonight.

There was a flash of white, and something much bigger than a rabbit dashed across the ground. The White Stag fled before us like all the other animals. I almost called his name, but if he had not even turned that great horned head, it would have broken my heart all over again. Then he was lost in the dark, as lost to me as Gran.

The faerie mounds came into view, and we sped toward them. If there were guards out, they did not make themselves known. Did they not see us, or were they too frightened to draw attention to themselves?

The Seelie mound was before us. I had a moment to think, "How do we get inside?" But I had forgotten that a true hunt, with a true purpose, is barred by no door. We flowed toward the mound, and the horses and hounds did not even slow. They knew that the way would open, and it did. There was a moment when I felt the spell on the door, and realized that someone inside had barred the way with their strongest spells. Had they thought that our court would attack tonight? Had they feared what the queen would do for her niece's rape? The thought was a distant one, as if I thought about someone else. I watched the spell spill away from the door in that spot just behind the eyes where visions happen. One moment the spell was golden and bright, the next it fell away like the petals of some great flower opening for us. The shining doors opened in a spill of warm, yellow light, and our white shine flowed into the gold of it, and we were in.