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Chapter Thirty-Four
Ash
Lonan didn’t make a sound.
A single spurt of dark blood squirted from the wound as his wings beat frantically, desperate to escape. But the Carlin still held him in her long-fingered fist, and she bared her bloody teeth at her youngest son in some semblance of a grin.
Terror constricted my heart. I was convinced that she was going to squeeze his body until he popped, despite her vow. Until she ground his bones and feathers to dust and his innards to pulp.
Lonan’s wings beat faster and harder, the sound of them so small in the cavernous room. After what felt like eons, she let him go. The bird shot up in a burst of movement, but after a few seconds I could tell he was weakening—quickly. Tiny droplets of blood followed him across the room as he flew as fast as he could towards me. Like pixie feet in ink, I thought vaguely, remembering movies from my youth. A different life now, from this one filled with pain and blood and death.
The Carlin was still panting weakly, but her face twisted with cruel satisfaction as she watched him struggle his way across the hall, her one cobalt eye gleaming with sick pleasure at the sight of his suffering. When she started chewing, I thought I was going to throw up.
My eyes burned as Lonan finally made it to me. He smacked right into my chest, and I had to quickly cup his fragile body in my hands before he fell to the ground. I was trembling, and when I felt his heartbeat against my palm—so fast and frantic it was like a vibration—my vision went red. I imagined ripping the Carlin’s fingers off with my bare hands, one by one. Her ears. Her teeth. Each strand of hair. I would tear her to shreds.
But I had to go. I had to get Lonan to someone who could help him—heal him. To Nua and Gillie—they’d know what to do. I had no time to get myself killed by the Carlin trying to exact my revenge for her broken son—for everything. Not that there was much she could do to me now. She could barely move anymore, Gadleg’s venom stiffening up her limbs. And I was Seelie King. Equally matched in strength. That hadn’t really sunk in yet.
I raised my head from Lonan to stare at her across the hall, holding her gaze through blurred, burning eyes. I was trembling. I was terrified for Lonan. I didn’t try to hide it from her. Didn’t try to hide any of it from her—not my fear, my anger, my pain for her son.
I heard the voice leave me before I even realised I was speaking. “I will kill you for this. Only for this.”
Even the Carlin seemed surprised I would dare speak to her this way.
“I want you to know exactly why I am killing you when I do it,” I told her, my voice quiet—but I knew she could hear me. And for a split second, she looked uneasy. “And it won’t be because of what you did to me. Or what you tried to do to the seelie. I’ll kill your eldest son for what he did to my parents, but when I kill you, it will beonlybecause of this. It will be only for him.”
For a brief moment, the Carlin looked utterly shocked. But then she let out a rough, pained laugh, her bronze teeth still stained with her son’s blood.
“How adorable.” Her voice was tight, but she twisted her face into a sneer. “Sweet boy, do you believe you carry your mother’s powers? I’m afraid there can only be one Wielder of Words, and it isn’t you.”
“No?” My heart thumped hard. “I think it became me when I killed her.”
I registered the way the Carlin’s face jerked with shock, but didn’t let her speak.
“Let’s test it, shall we?” My heart was thudding hard in my chest, and I knew I had to leave to get Lonan help, but I drew myself up taller. “I vow to you, Carlin, Unseelie Ruler, that I will kill you for what you have done to your youngest son.”
A ripple of power flowed across the room, crossing the distance from me to the Unseelie Queen like water snakes gliding smoothly across the bed of a lake. The Carlin jerked back on the ground, arms collapsing beneath her and bronze teeth gritting with fury and pain. Her face drained of the last of its faint colour, turning grey, her one eye like molten fire.
“I vow that I will make you suffer a thousand times worse than you have made him suffer.”
Another wave of power rippled across the hall. I forced myself to smirk at her, even though I felt like I was seconds away from vomiting as Lonan’s fragile body thrummed in my hands.
“I give my oath as the Seelie King, Carlin,” I said through clenched teeth, the words flowing from me, “that I will kill you.”
I felt a scratch on my left shoulder, one that was familiar from the last time I’d been in here. I knew my oath had etched itself into my skin. I turned to leave, bracing myself against the tidal wave of icy rage rising up against my back.
“How did you do it?” the Carlin shrieked. “How did you kill her? How? How did you kill her?”
Her voice was trembling—from rage or shock or fear, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps all three. Because before I’d turned my back on her, I had, for the first time, seen true fear in the Carlin’s face.
