Silver Hollow (52 page)
Any crossfire that dared to graze her skin was collected in the glowing silver light now trapped within. She glowed brightly as the moon keeping vigil above their land. Every step she took was agony, still she pressed on towards the elders and the platform. Some who saw her took hope and joined the conclave of defenders. Most of their guests ran away in terror from the house to take their chances with the night.
The roar of frightened horses and rumbling carriages faded into the forest. Some never made it past the outer gates. Gremlin,
golem
and worse
that had fled with the Princess’s arrival
months ago
returned and waited in ambush to satisfy their hunger.
Amie forgot the fact she was too important to be revealed yet. They needed her to survive. Ginuog fought from outside, rounding up unruly creatures with short bullet bursts in the ears and throats. Faye had split her long skirt and was weaving in and out of the hysterical crowd in an acrobatic dance. She threw the
Unseelie
down with her feet and hands and threw in the occasional jab of her heel to the jugular. She was so much enjoying the fight she almost missed the objective of her training passing her by. Snatching Amie by the waist, she threw them both on the ground and shouted above the roar, “Are you crazy? What are you still doing here
,
Wentworth? You have to get out of here now!”
“No, I have to help them!” Amie blinked past the haze the ring had affected her mind with. The house’s voice in her head was too demanding, too strong for her to ignore.
Faye sliced the end of Amie’s finger with the tip of her long double
-
bladed dagger as a last resort. “No
,
you don’t
,
you idiot!”
“Ouch!” Amie hissed, looking at her maimed skin. “What’d you do that for?”
“Grow a pair, woman!” Faye rolled them to the side in time to avoid the purple blast of energy
currently tarnishing the marble black
.
Without hesitation she pitched a
dagger back in the direction of the blast
. T
he white
-
eyed
Sidhe
screamed and fell a bloody heap onto the marble. Grabbing Amie’s hands,
Faye
jerked her up on her feet. “If you help them we all die! Now get up and get your arse out of here!”
Before Amie could protest Faye jumped over her head and landed on the back of a horned
Unseelie
. Her hands braced either side of his head and he screeched when a red-hot energy built and shone from beneath her palms.
Earth to Amie, snap out of it
,
kid!
“Okay
,
Jess, time to go,” she gasped as another shockwave of energy blasted her defenses. The house wanted her to stay and fight and it took everything in her not to turn around and look for Henry. But Dearg was waiting for her. To save them she had to be selfish. She almost felt the rip in her soul when she denied the house her sliver of protection. The walls had already been set in place by her earlier and would have to make do.
The one thing no one saw coming was the gryphon that came crashing through the glass windows and
brought
death to them. A high cackle filled their ears and then the rest of the glass was imploding overhead.
Amie screamed as the wall frame fell over Henry and
Lewyon,
her Feather
,
smashed lifelessly into the elders. The crowd panicked and she was shoved onto the floor. She might have stood up were she not covered by the woman wearing a sheer luminous violet cloak. Amie stared up at the golden, tear
-
filled eyes that leaked and wet Amie’s cheeks.
“Hang onto me,” Morcant keened before her wail overtook her, higher in pitch than any human voice Amie had heard. The cackle beyond their walls ceased
and all Unseelie crumpled to the floor, covering their ears. All Seelie were unaffected
.
O
nce it w
as over Morcant stood, bringing Amie with her. Together they fled to the hall, nearly reached the doors when she stopped and released Amie’s hand.
“I must go to him!” Her beauty had been marred by pain, but it was clear Lady Hogswillow was not and perhaps had never been a true threat.
I so had her pegge
d wrong.
When Amie only stared, awestruck, Morcant shoved her further along with a pulse of her inner nixy. “I’m as much a prisoner as you are! Now go! Get out of here while you still can!”
Amie ran.
Alastair barreled past her in a berserker fury, quickly followed by a frantic Underhill. “Alastair
,
ye foolish oaf! Ye have no business fighting!”
“It’s my fight too
,
ye prickled female!”
Amie slowed and
Underhill
instantly saw her retreat. For a split second the hobgoblin was torn between whom to follow,
then she
snatched her skirts to reveal how high her stockings went, grabbed Amie’s arm and pulled her along.
“Milady
,
I don’t know what in Oberon’s night drawer is happening, but we better get you far from it!” Shoving
Amie
back into the kitchens
,
Underhill
paused, the two friends sharing one last communion. Amie saw then how much her maid truly cared for her, but how she cared even more for the Cook
,
who was the love of her life.
“You need to look after him.”
Underhill
nodded, rubbing the tears from her eyes
,
and fluffed her skirts nervously. “Run to the stables as fast as ye can
,
lass! Eddie shall be waiting
,
I expect!” With a wink she was gone.
Amie jumped as the house shook to its foundations.
The defense is weakening. Please be strong!
The attack had not come without warning. Morcant had, in fact, been anticipating this day ever
since her sources reported Jessamiene Wenderdowne’s return
to Silver Hollow. She couldn’t look at the half-breed without a twinge of loathing and regret. The girl had been the illegitimate product of a human woman and the love of Morcant’s life. Certainly she had loved both Drustan and Iudicael equally when they were children. Either one of them might have done for her. As she expected, they did sit up and take notice later on, of the wrong woman.
Unfortunately for Morcant, Drustan only cared enough to satisfy his carnal hunger, and Iudicael would not touch the maiden betrothed to his brother. Perhaps it was because she could not have him that Morcant had tried too hard to win his affections. No matter, it was a fact she was in love with Iudicael Wenderdowne, no matter what name he chose to go by. And it was a universal truth she hated Dameri Hawkeye.
She half expected to hate Jessamiene as deeply as the mother, seeing her as a pawn to be removed from Henry’s life. But the moment Drustan’s eyes looked out from that heart
-
shaped face she knew she mustn’t allow Grimwich to follow through with her orders. It should have been simple that day in the market to lead her off alone and let Rumplekin handle the child. That day Morcant made the more difficult decision, to protect her. She would have done this and more if it secured her beloved’s happiness.
So when th
e attack finally came from the E
xiled factions, with
golem
and demons at their backs, the only thing she could think of doing was protecting Jessamiene.
Emrys disappeared three beats of a hummingbird’s heart before the attack, leaving Morcant to help Jessamiene’s
Unseelie
protector fend off assassination attempts.
Would be of grand use if the child would simply look around and notice time has not stopped for her! Why does she give pause now, of all times?
Jessamiene was clutching her chest and glimmering from the inside out, her features contorted in a semblance of pain. The weight of the magic surrounding her was affecting the other nearby guests enough to distract them from who she truly was. Had Morcant been looking
any other way, she would have missed the discharge of energy sent her way by a familiar
Unseelie
.
Beauregard! How did I not foresee his betrayal
?
Had she hesitated, she would have been too late to st
op the next explosion. She barely
managed to throw herself over the girl and urge her to safety.
Meanwhile
,
she was reeling with this newest revelation. Beauregard had insisted he come tonight, instead of her most trusted hobgoblin servant. She
had been
pleased to see her nephew seemingly care about his rightful place in society. So it was with a heavy heart she was forced to fight against him.
Morcant had rarely used her peculiar gifts in the last century. Mani
pulation and vanity had been her
forte much longer than fighting wars. But her perfectly pitched voice also happened to have a talent for turning songs into weapons.
Unseelie
couldn’t handle the song of the pure.
She never expected to save the life of a female who had made insinuations about her age and fashion sense. But she was in a forgiving mood, if only because the lass had Drustan’s eyes. She screeched with the wail he had once dubbed her “banshee.” The darkness receded and their enemy collapsed, momentarily stunned.
I forgot how talented I am at that.
After making c
ertain that Jessamiene had fled and would make it to safety, Morcant returned to the ruined ballroom. Tempestuous fury supplied her energy and strength now. The desecration m
e
et
ing
her eyes as she reentered the ballroom brought tears to her eyes. She leapt over fallen figures she had been laughing with moments before, spirits she had known her entire life.
“Henry!” she screamed upon discovering him motionless beneath a fallen beam. Stray
nixy
blasts collided overhead, raining sparkling colors contrasting light and dark. Raising a hand, she deflected a curse aimed at the Master of the House, then glanced balefully at the coward. A white
-
skinned, gray-eyed
greyling
had sent the blast and was now running the other direction. Morcant screeched, the shockwave force of sound throwing the creature back down onto the bloody ground.
Morcant paused to catch her breath, then turned to see the noble families trying to rescue their fallen elders. In the near distance the beasts, their ancient guardians, were fighting a losing battle.
No time remains.
Where the glass wall had fallen in, Morcant erected a temporary shield, her own special creation. It took the form of opaque shingles tiled over one another in blues, purples and bright green shades, like stained glass. Except when the enemy came, they would quickly learn to touch it meant they received an even greater shockwave than they were expecting.
How have I come to this? It all should have gone so differently…
Tears blurred her vision when she pulled Henry from the rubble
,
cringing at the sound of his weak, incoherent groans. His wounds were severe, but she mustn’t think on them now. “Come, my love,” she whispered to his ear while helping him stand upright. With a wave of her hand she covered his belly with her
nixy
, this time to contain his flesh until it could be properly mended. He gasped when she wrapped his arm securely around her shoulders. He was much taller than she was, but she had always been strong.
“Morcant? Where is Jessamiene?”
She stumbled when Henry lost his footing, barely managing to keep them upright. “She’s safe, my love. Hurry, there is little time!”
“N
o
! Not without my Jessie!” He sighed, turning his bold gaze to hers. Morcant sucked in a sharp breath to see those ageless silvery eyes she fell in love with centering the beauty of his golden form.
“Master!” the maid screamed as she rushed over to them. Morcant cringed a
t the sight of the hobgoblin
Henry trusted more than she. She had taken a particular delight in making Underhill’s life miserable when the opportunity arose. A servant should act precisely as the station they
were
born into. This
was
the way it had been done for thousands of years, and was the reason they yet survived. Only at Wenderdowne did the King abstain from such traditions, to her never
-
ending consternation. She did not like how closely the maid was clutching her superior’s hand now either.
“Oh, Master! Whatever shall we do! Alastair is fending them off in the hall as we speak. And I glimpsed that codfish Emrys barricading the doors earlier, rushing off into the shadows, the
blithering w
ight
.”
