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I backed away, placing the four poster bed between me and the stranger. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“There is only one thing I have wanted from you in a very long time, your majesty,” he said, his voice deep and harsh. “You thought with Princess Niamh’s death that our cause would simply fade into the night?”
No. My knees grew weak, and I trembled. This man was a member of the Fomori.
And he’d come to kill me.
My heart beat fast, and the whispers slammed into me with a vengeance. “Guards!” I tried, even though I’d abandoned them and they probably hadn’t made it to my door yet.
A chuckle rose from the figure under the hood. “You might as well stop. My magic ward will not let them enter.”
Spells. He wasn’t just part of the Fomori. He was a sorcerer.
I shall take care of this, Badb growled.
A flash of silver under the cloak made the dread grow stronger. And I succumbed.
Badb studied the man as he approached, coming close to the bed. She edged out of the corner Morrigan had been backing into. He held a dagger under his cloak, though he still kept it hidden. She sensed it, all the times it had spilled blood, and yet, this would be its first kill. The blade was laced with manticore poison. One prick would end a faerie for good.
The fancy gown she wore put her at a disadvantage. While she prowled closer to the bed, she slipped out of her shoes. He caught the movement.
“Giving yourself a fighting chance,” he muttered. “There is no escape. The ward I set will hold until I finish what I came to do.”
Badb bared her teeth at him. “Or until you are dead.”
He paused at the hostility in her voice. “I see Morrigan has let her sister come out to play. You, Badb, are the corruption that first allowed female warriors into faerie ranks. Your death along with that of your sisters shall only prove what a mistake it was to allow women parity with men.”
The knife flashed out from under the cloak as he lunged toward her. Badb rolled onto the bed and leapt up, focusing on keeping her dress from getting in the way. He adjusted and lunged again, his blade tearing a line down her skirts. She hissed and grabbed the bedpost, using it as leverage as she swung around it and landed on his back. The attacker fought to regain his balance. She locked her legs about him and reached inside the hood, digging her nails into his eyes.
He screamed and staggered, trying to turn the knife on her. She gripped his fist that held the dagger with one hand, while tunneling deeper and deeper into his eye socket, feeling the fluid and tendons beneath her fingers. With his next thrust, she directed it into the bed. She bit his hand, sinking her teeth into flesh until he released his weapon.
The sword belted at his waist called to her and she drew it, extracting her bloody fingers from inside his face, enjoying the tang of his blood and flesh in her mouth.
She ripped back his hood.
The intruder lay face down on the bed breathing hard and Badb moved quickly, perceiving that he had one more magically invisible knife strapped to his thigh, also tainted with manticore poison. If she cut it off swiftly, she might hide its existence from Morrigan. She rammed the sword into his thigh slicing downward in a smooth motion and heard the dagger thud softly onto the floor.
The man’s body jerked, and another scream rent the air. Badb smiled. She’d severed an artery in that move. He’d bleed out.
Not that faeries could die from that.
His face turned to the side, showing the crimson trickling from his eye. Words began to tumble from his mouth. He was chanting, casting a spell. Fear speared through Badb. Magic.
With a snarl, she jumped onto the bed, tore the knife covered in manticore poison from the mattress, and slammed it into the man’s throat.
The chanting stopped.
His body locked.
Then went still.
Manticore poison worked that fast. Even though he was dead, his body continued to bleed out, soaking into the bed’s coverings, dribbling down his leg onto the floor.
The door to Morrigan’s bedroom burst open, and Keelin and a retinue of guards barged in.
From the way the werewolf on his arm twitched and how he held his drawn sword, she gathered Keelin assumed the screams had belonged to Morrigan. He took in the dead form and then turned his gaze on Badb, wariness in his expression.
“Badb?” he said.
