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A flicker of something close to grief passed over Aeval’s face. “It is…”
“But?”
Aeval’s reply was interrupted. The hilltop had taken on a gauzy, misted veil of light. It radiated from the drunken, yawning stones of the tomb, poured up into the sky. The ground shook, and sounds like a chorus of thousands moaned around them. The hair on Ellery’s arms stood up. A sucking wind coiled around her as the light that had shot into the air now spilled down the hill like a running wave, leaping, curling. It would be at their feet in seconds.
Aeval had to shout to be heard. “To gain this power, Bligh must break the ties that hold him within the Mortal world. In all ways, he becomes fey.”
The silver-edged light flowed over them, coming up as far as their knees before spreading out in a shimmering pool. Aeval seemed infused with color, her hair and skin now aglow with the strange flickering ghost-shine.
“Like you?” Ellery’s own voice came out high and tight with strain.
Aeval shook her head. “No. The magic he calls forth is even more powerful and ancient than mine. He may bend it to his will for the space of time needed to defeat Asher, but it will consume him in the end.”
The breath-stealing crush had kept Ellery to short quick pants, almost bringing her to her knees. “He’ll die?” she gasped.
Again Aeval shook her head. “It’s not death that awaits him. He will be a living vessel, housing the magic of the Fomorii, a race of gods and beings older than the fey. We cannot let a possessor of such strength have the freedom to walk among us. He will be…guarded.”
Ellery snatched a glance at the reliquary, now glowing with the same pale, luminous green that had rimed Asher in her bedchamber. “Imprisoned, you mean.” She squared her shoulders. “I won’t let you shut him away like a criminal. That’s worse than death.”
Aeval’s eyes narrowed, but this time she nodded. “Then we must offer the blood.” Drawing forth a curved, bone-handled dagger, she gestured toward the quoit. There was no malice in her gaze, only an infinite weight of years.
Could she really do it? Now that the time had come, her body felt leaden, her blood roared in her ears. She’d seen the men of the forlorn hope; those soldiers first up the wall, first into the breach. Courageous. Foolhardy. A little mad. She was all of those things.
Head high, Ellery started up the hill.
Conor shed Asher’s attack with an ease he’d not expected. Even the roar of voices in his head had dimmed to a tolerable clamor, so that if he chose, he could ignore the relentless chant that stripped him layer by layer of the humanity left to him. He lashed out, pushing past Asher’s wards, connecting with a slide of steel that ripped a wound in the demon’s side.
“Where are your lackeys now, demon?” he sneered. “Deserted you? Like rats from a sinking ship.”
Asher retreated, his face caught in lines of confusion. Beyond, Simon watched. But he remained fixed as stone, neither moving to aid Asher or hinder Conor. His turn would come. If the Fomorii allowed, Conor would use his last freedom to send Simon to the devil. The blood-right was his no matter the connection between them.
A movement below caught his attention. Trespassers on the hill. Were these the Keun Marow? Had he spoken too soon? Barely drawing on his new strengths, he reached out. Touched the minds of those approaching. What struck him stunned the breath from his body. Aeval. Ellery. The reliquary. All three in this place meant only one thing; his sacrifice would be for nothing if he didn’t act to stop her. Aeval must not be allowed to top the rise.
Ellery followed the path up the steep, rocky slope, each step increasing the numbness that began at her fingers and toes before tracking up her limbs toward her heart. A dull echo sounded in her ears, reminding her of the roll of the sea back in her cottage in Carnebwen.
“Go!” Conor’s voice sounded in her head like a blast. He broke free of Asher to stride toward her. “Fool! Leave now!”
He was no more than twenty yards away. And now the change in him was clear. The thick-boned musculature, broadened shoulders, and corded arms of the Heller. His eyes gleaming wolf-gold and ruthless in his tight-jawed face. Bile rose in her throat at the vision of his scarred and bleeding body, wounds that for any normal human would have long ago meant death.
She stumbled to her knees, scraping her hands on the scree, tearing a hole in her gown. Dead leaves whirled up from the ground, rattling in a cold draft of wind that rushed overhead. Behind her, Aeval screamed.
Ellery rolled onto her back, her arms instinctively covering her head as she stared up into a vacant space that until a moment before had contained the faery. Aeval was gone, but the reliquary lay abandoned on its side, the scarred, jeweled face of it staring back at her. The earlier feeling she’d gotten from the casket had grown. Now just glancing at it made her recoil. The brothers grew impatient.
She scrambled to her feet, but the numbness made her awkward. She fell again.
The trees at the bottom of the hill bent their branches in an answering whirlwind. Fought the gathering clouds, allowing the moon to slide free. Dust kicked up by the gusts choked her. Stung her eyes. Scoured her face and arms. Aeval appeared again. The mask of elegance replaced with a fierce, defiant glare. “She will fulfill the molleth. It is so written.”
Ellery ducked her head, crawled toward the shelter of a rocky outcropping scrubbed with bushes.
Conor paused only paces away. “Get her out of here, Aeval. This is naught to do with her.” Even his voice had changed. Deeper. Colder. As if it came from far away or was overlaid by another’s tongue.
Aeval raised her knife. “She desired it. She came to me. I do only as she asks, but even were she unwilling, I would choose her death over yours.”
“It’s not your place to decide,” he answered.
“What you attempt will serve only to deny the Other their greatest hero in an age. She’s insignificant. A small price to pay.”
Aeval flicked out her fingers as if she tossed him something. Mist seeped from the ground. Gray and shadowy, it clung to the earth, spread to shroud the rippling, silver light. Wrapped itself around the reliquar
