The Dark Throne (77 page)

“Perhaps if you watch a few die, you will change your mind,” he said, watching the battle with detached interest. He smiled as he watched a slim cloaked figure moving about a stone altar; from this height, I recognized the pattern of a circle and complex laid into the ground beneath the altar, the symbols darkened with age and nearly indistinguishable now but from above: the Great Seal. The hood of the slim figure fell away and I stared at the harrowed face of the Unseelie princess, too distant to see clearly; but I was still left with an impression of terrible sacrilege, blasphemy against the purity that had once inhabited the princess. And then I saw that she had set wards of iron around the Great Seal, gleaming darkly. How she endured them with her Side origins, I couldn’t guess, but none of our warriors would be able to pass the wards to stop her…none of our warriors except for my brother and his teammates.

I wrenched my eyes from the stone altar, though Malravenar continued to watch with expectant pride, like a teacher watching a pupil perform a difficult task. He didn’t see, as I saw, that the three Queens were no longer frozen. They moved as though against a gale, but Titania and Mab had reached the eastern and western points of the compass, only a few paces from Malravenar’s still figure. He stood immobile, his hand still on my cheek. Vell knocked several Dark creatures aside with her white staff, and decapitated a skin-wraith without so much as a glance.

Keep his focus
. It was just a whisper, but I heard it.

“Change my mind about what?” I said. Malravenar looked at me. “I can’t consider it if I don’t know what you’re asking.”

Malravenar smiled with that terrifying beauty. “Not only stubborn but slow.”

“It’s hard to think when you’re being assaulted on all sides by shadows and blood,” I retorted.

“On the contrary, that is when you should think the clearest,” the Enemy replied. “But I will elucidate.” He held my eyes with his own.

A few more moments
, murmured the Sword, or Gwyneth.

“Join me,” he said, all his dark magnificence shining in his words. Somehow even in his insubstantial form, he seemed
more
, and the shadows coiling about him only underlined his splendor. “With me you shall be a darkly burning flame, and you will consume all.” A seductive image rose before my eyes: myself, imbued with a strange otherworldly beauty, my hair not golden but black as night, a nimbus of darkness about my face as I raised a black blade in my hand, shimmering with a fire that did not produce light but drew it into itself and devoured it. Malravenar’s words wrapped about me as I stared, transfixed, at this eclipse of myself. “You shall be the dark goddess of this world, feared and worshipped above all others.”

Then as I stared at the shimmering vision, several things happened all at once: in the peculiar way of a child hearing its parent’s voice, I heard Liam cry out in the battle below. The vision dissipated and I turned, desperately trying to see my brother in the churning chaos. Malravenar hissed in displeasure and I felt him begin to pull me back toward the dark room—or perhaps a dark dungeon. A small slim figure broke through the roiling lines of Dark creatures, running toward Malravenar’s body with an odd stilted gait. I fought his inexorable gravity with all the strength I had left, and then Arcana reached up with one child-small hand and wrenched his grip from my body.

I hurtled down through the shadows and slammed back into myself, falling backward with the force of my reentry. Copper sparks flew from Arcana’s hand where she gripped Malravenar, the smell of hot metal overwhelming and acrid. I tried to regain my feet and slipped in blood—not my own, but everywhere blood and gore pooled blackly on the dark stones.

“Enough,” Arcana said, looking incredibly small as she tilted her head up to meet Malravenar’s eyes.

He laughed, but it was not the overwhelming thunderous laugh that knocked us all senseless. I thought I saw a glint in his eye. “I should have known you would ally yourself with these meddling children.”

“They are my children,” said the Morrigan clearly, sparks drifting around her, creating a hazy copper aura.

“You had a child once,” replied Malravenar. “
My child
.”

“And she died. As you should have let her rest in peace, so should I have guessed that you would walk this dark path.”

I finally struggled to my feet with the undignified use of the Caedbranr as a crutch. I coughed and tasted blood in the back of my throat. The battle still swirled around us, but there were enough of our fighters to keep this small circle protected. I glimpsed Robin, gore smeared across his face, fighting side by side with Sage; and Finnead, the Brighbranr gleaming blue in his hand. But that was all I saw before I turned back to Malravenar.

Your stone, Tess!
It was Vell’s voice in my mind this time; I fought the urge to laugh and fling my arms wide and invite all comers into my head—was there anyone who hadn’t spoken silently in my mind? My fingers didn’t want to work. Every part of me ached, but I finally loosened the strings of my beltpouch, slid clumsy fingers inside, and palmed the smooth cool riverstone. I stood opposite Vell, at the fourth point of the compass. The diamond was a bit lopsided, I thought grimly, but it would have to do. I placed my stone on the bloody ground, and something shuddered in the air.

“You think to trap me?” thundered Malravenar, his gaze snapping from the Morrigan to me. He knocked Arcana aside and she skidded across the stones, coming to rest in a still heap near Mab. The Unseelie Queen didn’t flinch, her mouth moving steadily in an incantation. The stone I’d just placed on the ground trembled, and then began to rattle against the floor.

“You think to trap me,” repeated Malravenar, in an amused voice, “but you will still lose this battle. The Gate will open.” And he looked over into the shadows, drawing them back like a curtain, to the small altar at the foot of his dais. A slim hooded figure stood before the altar, holding a shining black cup. A chill crawled down my spine: our blood was already in the cup. The figure I’d thought I’d imagined—the one that had breezed past me, toward the Queens…it had been the Dark Archer. The crown princess.

“You have brought me all I need,” said Malravenar silkily.

“Stop her!” I shouted, and my voice echoed, amplified by the Caedbranr’s power. Even as the queens continued their incantation, and the stones began to glow, the cloaked figure held the cup of blood above her head. I saw Liam and Duke, fighting their way toward the black altar; and Luca, leaping through the battle as though he had wings. My brother reached the cloaked figure first, his blade raised. The air shimmered, or flickered. I didn’t see the princess move, but Liam clutched at the dagger that appeared in his side. I closed my teeth on the scream that bubbled up through my throat. Liam fell. Duke leapt over him, but with a flick of her wrist the cloaked figure slammed him against the base of the altar. He crumpled into a motionless heap. Luca ran toward the altar just as the princess poured the blood from the black goblet; the Great Seal cracked and a burst of darkness sucked all the light out of the cavernous room. All of it happened in an instant.

For the space of a single heartbeat we floated in that blackness, and then blood and shadows and light rushed back. The riverstones shone like miniature suns, and a dark hole as black as they were bright engulfed the dark altar, swallowing Duke’s still form even as Luca reached him and caught hold of his arm. I felt like my heart stopped as Luca disappeared—he was there and then he was gone, and now the Gate pulled my brother toward its maw. Merrick, his face pale, dove past the iron wards and caught Liam by the shoulder as the blackness engulfed his legs. Jess ran to his teammate’s side, his face grim as he heaved Liam up and they struggled against the pull of the Gate. I couldn’t see Merrick anymore—one moment he was helping Jess pull Liam free, and then he slipped. My vision wavered. I saw forms rushing toward and away from the shimmering, shifting blackness. The ground shook beneath our feet. It felt as though the seams of the world were giving way, and we were seeing into the brightness and darkness of eternity. Malravenar raised his hands and laughed, and then I heard Vell scream, “Now, Tess!
Now!”

The Caedbranr’s fire exploded within me, white fire drowning my vision. I took one step forward, and then another, thinking sluggishly that my body felt as heavy as a sack of stones. As Malravenar exulted, I raised the Sword in both hands and thrust it squarely through his chest.

Chapter 39

M
alravenar’s body offered surprisingly little resistance, the Caedbranr cleaving through him up to its hilt. The Sword blazed, the blade lost within the bonfire of leaping white flames. I fell to my knees, watching dazedly, feeling the pull of power from within my own chest feeding the inferno. My sleeve caught fire, but it didn’t burn me. I
was
fire. I felt it leaping and twisting, biting at the Enemy’s physical body.

Malravenar stopped laughing, and though the flames raged around him, I watched in quiet fascination as his hands went to the hilt of the Sword. He tried to pull it out of himself and failed, the blade sticking fast in his chest. His beautiful face twisted in sudden realization as the fire devoured him, his gray skin darkening and crackling, revealing bone as black as pitch beneath his flesh. The fire whirled and screamed in triumph as he opened his skeletal teeth in a soundless howl. Hot gray ash whirled through the air as Malravenar’s bones crumbled. A writhing shadow remained, spitted on the Sword. I crawled forward, my hands dark with blood and dust. Then the three Queens stood around the shadow with me, the two Sidhe queens with their swords in their hands, and Vell with her ivory staff. Wind swirled around us, echoing the shade’s struggles. I reached out, grasped the Sword, and again levered myself to my feet. Dimly I became aware that a wall of white fire burned around us. The three Queens blazed with their own power: night and day stretched above us, and snow swirled in the air. As one, they said words foreign to my ears, but their voices vibrated through my bones with their power; and as one, they struck down into the shade of Malravenar with their blades and ivory staff.

The shade shrieked, cleaved into four pieces. Each blot of darkness sped to a corner of the diamond, sucked neatly into the four stones. The cavern rumbled and shuddered, and I thought tiredly amidst the Dark creature’s shrieks of despair that I didn’t have the energy to escape a tumbledown throne room again. The wall of white fire collapsed, incinerating a few creatures; and then Vell and Mab plunged into the waning battle, Vell striking creatures with her staff and her blade, yelling Northern war-cries and wearing a fierce smile. Mab carved a path toward the shuddering, shimmering black hole that was the Gate, still plucking at the seams of reality, still drinking in the light around it. The Unseelie Queen seemed to grow taller as she approached the Great Seal. She walked regally around the edge of the Gate, and brought her sword down squarely on the dark altar, cracking it in two. There was no great wind or silent explosion. The Gate simply disappeared, the cloth of reality smoothing back into place, and no crack remained in the Seal.

With the binding of Malravenar and the closing of the Gate, the earth stopped trembling. The shadows retreated, losing their malevolence, becoming merely shadows. Some of the remaining Dark creatures slunk away into the recesses of the room, and the warriors who remained on their feet slew the rest, grimly. Titania touched my arm, holding out one of the river-stones to me. I took it, and it felt strangely heavy. Runes rippled across its surface. I wished that I didn’t have to touch something that contained part of Malravenar’s spirit, but it was an ordinary sort of disgust, like watching a particularly ugly spider from the opposite side of a window. I slipped the stone into my belt-pouch wearily with my left hand, my right still gripping the Sword.

Quinn approached me at a limping run, blood darkening one of his knees. “Tess, you need to come. Now.”

I remembered suddenly the dagger in Liam’s side and felt like I was going to be sick. The Sword, quiet and spent, stirred enough to send a ripple of power through me, enough that I lifted its blade and clumsily sheathed it, hissing as my hand peeled bloodily from the hilt. I reached out to Quinn, and he grabbed my arm. We hobbled through the field of fallen Dark creatures and pale motionless faces of our dead—I forced myself not to look, not until Quinn pulled me to a stop and there was Liam, lying on the ground a short distance from the broken altar. I fell to my knees beside him. Jess had already ripped Liam’s shirt away, pressing the wad of cloth around the dagger that protruded from Liam’s ribs.

“Where’s Duke? Where’s Sage?” I asked hoarsely, recalling only after I spoke that Duke had disappeared through the Gate. “They should be working on him…they should be…” My words ran dry as no one answered.

“I’ll find Sage,” said Quinn, gripping my shoulder. Jess remained silent, staring at the dagger that rose and fell with each ragged breath that passed my brother’s lips.

“Liam.” I gripped his shoulder, stared down at his pale face and tried not to hear the rattle in his chest. “Hey, it’s me.” I tried to push back the tears in my eyes, even as I reached for my own
taebramh
.

No
, said the Caedbranr almost gently.
You have just imprisoned one necromancer.

Liam opened his eyes, just barely, just enough for me to see their green glimmer. His lips moved but he couldn’t piece together enough breath to speak. I grabbed his hand. “Don’t try to talk. It’s okay. One of the healers will put you back together.” I tried to smile encouragingly and failed. Jess looked at me over my brother’s chest, lines deepening around his mouth as he shook his head.

Over Jess’s shoulder, I glimpsed Finnead, bent over the prone form of the Unseelie princess. The Dark Archer. The one who’d stabbed Liam. I felt my lips draw back from my teeth in a wordless snarl, but before I could say anything, Liam’s hand moved beneath mine. I turned my attention back to my brother. He struggled to breathe, and I watched him helplessly, trying to recall any sort of healing knowledge that would be useful in this moment.