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Donia began, “Ev—”
“Go.” Evan didn’t glance her way. As he advanced on Bananach, the sky turned black with the crush of crows descending.
And, in the midst of the feathered darkness, an unknown faery arrived and stood staring at them with cavernous eyes. Her body was partially wrapped in a torn gray winding sheet that trailed behind her like the train of a gown. Vivid spots of red stood out on the cloth, like scarlet poppies in a field of ashes.
The faery made no gesture toward them, no act of aggression, so the Winter Queen forced her attention to stay focused on the more obvious problems rather than the potential ones. Mortals were under attack; her faeries were in danger; and she herself was far from safe.
“Tend the mortals,” Donia called to her fey, but before her guards could do so, the remaining mortals began to shift anxiously and leave on their own.
Fear comes tearing toward us.
Donia looked up as the Hunt arrived. They were invisible to mortal eyes, but the presence of the Hunt unsettled even the most obtuse mortal
s. Gabriel’s steed was in the center of what, to their limited sight, appeared to be a sudden storm.
None of steeds were in car form. Instead, they looked like a deadly menagerie: an oversized lion snarled next to a lizardlike beast; something that resembled a dragon paced next to a chimera; and scattered among them all were skeletal horses and emaciated red dogs. Atop the steeds were battle-ready Hounds.
“If we might offer aid to Winter?” Gabriel growled. His steed was a giant black horse with a reptilian head. It opened its maw in a snarl that revealed pit-viper fangs.
“Your aid is quite welcome,” Donia told the Hound.
Bananach raised an arm, so that she was pointing at the sky. As she lowered her arm, faeries who allied with War swarmed from the alleys and side streets.
Cath Paluc stepped forward into the fracas. The great feline faery tore through the Hounds and their steeds. The Winter Guard and the Hunt fought together against Bananach’s faeries as one force, and Donia was grateful for the sudden allies.
What she wasn’t grateful for was the appearance of Far Dorcha. At the edge of the fight, he waited on a macabre throne of his own making; the seat of his throne looked like nothing more than the spine and rib cage of some creature she couldn’t identify. Far Dorcha himself sat within the splayed-open ribs as if he’d been swallowed by some great skeletal beast.
The faery in her winding-cloth dress walked toward him, and for a moment Death smiled at her. The fleeting expression was the first proof of any emotion that Donia had seen. In a blink it was over, and he raised his gaze to stare at Donia. He nodded, and then looked over his shoulder to the unfamiliar faery, who now stood with her hand on the edge of his bone-wrought throne. Then, together, Death and his companion watched her faeries fall.
The Winter Queen turned her back to them and pushed farther into the fighting, bloodying her ice-made sword because it was either that or be bloodied.
Senseless death.
War was not to fight in this way. She was to incite discord, but she was not to simply attack regents or their faeries.
“I come to you not in full numbers, but in warning.” Bananach’s tone was conversational, despite the growing chaos in the street. “If you do not give me my declaration of war, you will die, Snow.”
“You cannot simply go around killing our kind. There was no declaration of war, nor will there be.” Donia said the words as much as a question to Bananach as a statement of Donia’s hopes.
Bananach’s faeries continued to flood the street, and the Hounds and Winter Guard continued to engage them in battle. Unlike the scuffle at Donia’s garden, this was a fight with intent to kill. My faeries. Donia raised her sword as a faery launched himself at her. While she was defending herself, Bananach strode through the fight toward her.
Despite the nature of the faery who approached, Evan and several others of her guard stayed in front of Donia. As she watched, the raven-faery lifted a hand, and Donia saw the inevitable about to happen. The movement was too fast for Evan to react.
“One by one”—Bananach sliced her hand across Evan’s throat, dragging her talon-tipped fingers over his neck—“they will fall.”
Despite the distance between them, Donia heard the words as clearly as if they were face-to-face. They weren’t. They were far enough apart that Donia couldn’t reach Evan before he dropped to the ground. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, he had been taken from her. There was no pause: he was simply made dead.
And Donia felt it. He was hers, and as his queen, she felt their connection vanish as his life was extinguished.
The desire to gather the slain rowan to her vied with barely bound rage. Rage won. She knocked several faeries aside as she pursued Bananach, but before she could reach the murderous faery, Donia was caught around the waist and dragged onto a steed.
She shoved her elbow backward to no avail. “Let me go!”
“No,” the Hound holding her said. “The Gabriel pursues her. If anyone can catch her, it’s him.”
Donia glanced at Gabriel’s mate, Chela. “You have no right—”
“Gabriel ordered you kept safe,” Chela snarled back. “He rules the Hunt.”
