Darkest Mercy

Chapter 12

The Winter Queen had curled into a snowbank in her garden for a moment’s rest and found herself in one of the dreams that inevitably meant she would wake with tears on her cheeks, but someone was repeating a phrase yet again and the words were out of context: “I am sorry to wake you, but your guests are here, my Queen.”

In her dream, Donia had been walking toward the boardwalk where she’d met Keenan. Sand caked her feet. A gull cried out behind her. Donia woke. She stared up at the face of the person speaking to her. Evan. His leafy hair was brittle at the tips, frozen by the snow that fell as she’d slept. He wasn’t the one in her dreams.

“Gabriel and some of his lot are here. Not one Hound, but several.” Evan’s disdain for the Hounds was obvious in both his tone and expression. “I do not like their presence.”

Donia smiled at his protective streak. She knew as well as he did that creating allies was essential, but he still held old angers at the Hunt. She rubbed her hands over her face, letting the chill in her palms seep out to sooth her skin. Then she looked up at him as the clarity began to settle over her. “And you’ve no information yet.”

Frost clung to his skin, sparkling on him as it did on true trees. A roar from the gate drew his gaze, and when he looked back, he said only, “I do not want to invite your guests in.”

“They will not harm me,” she said evenly, as she willed the snow around her to form a throne.

“With all due respect, they are the Hunt, my Queen.” Evan scowled at the increased growls outside the garden. “They are not the sort of fey we—”

“I am the Winter Queen.”

“As you wish.” He gestured to one of the Hawthorn Girls at the door to the garden.

In a fraction of a moment, Gabriel stood before her.

To greet him without aggression would be an affront, so she fixed the leader of the Hounds with a stare that would make most fey tremble. “I would not summon the Gabriel himself to ask what I would know. I asked only to summon a Hound.”

“The girl said you wanted a Hound. I am the Gabriel.” Gabriel bowed his head.

The other Hounds bowed in turn. They dressed differently from one another—running the gamut from biker to businessman—but the expression of each was the same predatory one. Sometimes it was a posture, a tilt of the head, a wide-legged stance. Sometimes it was a look, fathomless eyes, bared teeth. No matter the garb or the face, the Hounds always evoked terror in a way that defied categorization.

And Donia knew instinctively that being as direct as she could was the right tactic. She started, “Word has come to me that Bananach took one of your number. That there was a fight with her. . . .”

“My own flesh,” Gabriel snarled. “My daughter.”

Donia stilled. “Your daughter?”

The Hounds as one let out such a howl that even she wanted to run in terror.

“The Winter Court . . . I offer our sympathy.” She caught his gaze. “How is the king—”

“I cannot speak of the king’s . . . state,” Gabriel interrupted.

She held Gabriel’s gaze, ignoring the feel of her fey sidling into the garden. They weren’t a noisy lot, but they murmured among themselves as they came. Their soft voices and crackling footfalls tumbled together in the silence of the garden.

A thick snow began to fall as she sent her assurances to her faeries. Several rebellious lupine snapped their teeth audibly. They weren’t aware that the Hunt had been invited, and even if they had known, they’d spare little love for the insult of the Hounds standing in their territory.

Donia looked around, taking the opportunity to assess where her Hawthorn Girls were, noticing the lupine fey and one of the glaistigs who’d joined them. Each of her fey stood facing one of the bulky Hounds. The glaistig faced Gabriel with a look that announced to all and each that she’d claimed him if violence were allowed.

The Hunt’s baying made enough noise that Donia suspected her words would be unheard. Still, she lowered her voice. “Has Bananach injured the king?”

“I cannot answer that.” For a moment, Gabriel stared at Donia as if willing her to understand the things he could not speak. Finally, he said, “The Dark Court has exiled her.”

“Exiled War? For her action against your daughter?” Donia’s incredulity was great enough that she wasn’t sure how to process that detail. Bananach had been among the Dark Court from almost the beginning. Sure, she’d pursued her own goals, but for nearly all of forever, the raven-faery had been tied to the Dark Court just as her twin, Sorcha, was a part of the High Court. They were of a pair, balancing their urges to chaos and order in two courts that stood in opposition.

“No.” Gabriel flexed his hands, fisting and unfisting them as the glaistig, Lia, eased closer still. “Not just that. Things . . .” He broke off and held out his forearms.

“I can’t read them. I’m sorry,” she said. The language used for his orders wasn’t one she knew.

He growled in frustration. “Can’t speak things I would say. Told my king I sought aid. I do seek aid for—” He stopped, growled again. “Can’t say.”

Startled, Donia stood.

Behind her, Evan waited. At some small gesture of his, two of the Hawthorn Girls floated nearer and stood on either side of Donia.

She stepped forward, but Gabriel did not move, so she was all but touching him. Quietly, she said, “I will learn what I need to know.”

Gabriel’s words were a rough whisper: “I would owe you a great debt. The Hunt would owe much.”

His voice seemed to tremble in a most un-Houndlike way, adding to Donia’s increasing sense of alarm. Something is very wrong in the Dark Court. She briefly put her hand on the massive Hound’s upper arm. “I’ve been thinking of calling on the Dark Court.”

Relief flooded Gabriel’s expression. “The Hunt defends the Dark Court. I can no longer stand near the last king, but I will stand with the Dark King. . . . I would protect him from further . . . I would make him well.”

Make him well? The possibility of Bananach having struck Niall hadn’t occurred to Donia. As a member of the Dark Court, Bananach shouldn’t be able to injure Niall. No one else was truly safe from her, but faeries could not kill their regents. Does exile nullify that rule? Who else would be strong enough to injure Niall? Had Bananach found a strong solitary to do the deed for her?

“Niall lives?”

Gabriel gave a terse nod.

“Is he injured?”

At that, Gabriel paused. “Niall is not fatally injured.”

But someone is, Donia finished silently. “Is Ir—”

“Can’t,” he interrupted.

And the Winter Queen felt a burst of panic threaten her calm. She nodded and suggested, “Perhaps I should seek out your king to tell him I will stand with him against Bananach.”

The Hound cleared his throat and asked, “Soon?”

“At first light,” she promised.

Gabriel bowed, and Donia walked toward the door to the house. Behind her, she heard snarls and growls, but she resisted looking back until she reached the doorstep. Donia glanced past the Hawthorn Girls and said, “I am sorry for your loss. If a tussle would soothe you, my fey seem amenable to it.”

The Hound’s expression flickered from sorrow, to rage, to confusion, and then finally to hope. “Can’t bargain anything on my king’s behalf, but—”

“Gabriel?” Donia interrupted. “The Hunt is not only the concern of the Dark Court. You align yourself with his court, but it has not always been so. I would have you and yours not in sorrow.”

The massive Hound flashed her a grateful smile. Then he looked back at Lia, and the glaistig launched herself at him.

The Winter Queen lifted a hand to her fey and exhaled, setting a blizzard shrieking through the garden, darkening the sky, and sending hailstones to clatter all around the grinning faeries.

Then she closed the door against the screams and howls that rent the air.