Darkest Mercy

Chapter 6

“He will not wake,” the new healer said.

Niall’s abyss-guardians flashed into existence at the pronouncement.

“Get the next healer,” the Dark King ordered.

A Hound whose name he couldn’t recall nodded. With a quick look at the Dark King, she grabbed the offending faery’s arm and hurriedly escorted him out of the room.

“Stab one or two healers, and everyone overreacts,” Niall said.

No one answered. Irial had fallen into unconsciousness and was not rousing.

Yet.

Niall drew out the cloth from the basin on the bedside table. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Irial’s forehead. “Your fever isn’t any worse. It’s not better yet, but it’s not worse.”

As he’d been doing most of the past day, he sat next to the unconscious faery and dabbed the wet cloth on Irial’s face and neck again.

“I can stay with him,” Gabriel said from the doorway. “If he wakes, I can send someone for you.”

“No.” He didn’t tell Gabriel about the peculiar dreams that he and Irial seemed to share now. It didn’t make sense to think he was really in the same dream with Irial. But it is real. It feels real. Niall had lived a long time, wandered for years, spent time in three different courts. He’d never heard of being able to dream together as he and Irial seemed to be doing. Is it madness? In his dreams they’d talked about all of the things they hadn’t spoken of in centuries; they’d been close as they hadn’t been in far too long. Am I imagining it?

The Hound tried again: “You need to rest. Court’s strength is from you. If you’re sick—”

“Don’t.” Niall glared at him. “Leave us.”

Gabriel ignored him. Instead of departing, he came farther into the room. He stood beside Irial’s bed and lowered one hand onto Niall’s shoulder in a gesture of support. “My pup is dead. Ani and Rabbit are over in Faerie. Irial’s hurt. I understand.”

The grief in the Hound’s voice almost undid the scant self-control Niall was desperately clinging to. “I can’t,” he admitted. “I can’t leave him. . . . Something’s not right.”

Gabriel snorted. “Lots of things aren’t right. Probably easier to list the things that are right.”

Silently, Niall dipped the cloth into the basin again. He stared at the water, trying to make sense of the feelings that had come over him. His reaction to Irial’s injury seemed too intense. Unpredictable thoughts clouded his mind; he couldn’t follow them from moment to moment with much clarity. Urges to violence pressed against his better judgment. In the couple days since Bananach had stabbed Irial, Niall had gone from angry to positively unhinged. He knew it. He’d felt emotions overwhelm him, but there was something else.

Something is wrong.

“Niall?”

The Dark King shook his head. “I’m not sure what I’ll do if I walk out of this room. I’m coming unraveled . . . without Irial. . . . I can’t do this alone, Gabe. I can’t. I’m not right.”

“You’re grieving. Normal reaction, Niall. You two have . . . issues, but you both knew what you were to each other.”

“Are, not were,” Niall corrected halfheartedly.

Gabriel took the cloth from Niall. “You’re not alone, either. Most of the court is here. The Hunt stands with you. I stand with you.”

When Niall looked up at the massive Hound, Gabriel extended his arms. “Give me a command, Niall. Your words, my orders. Tell me what you need.”

Niall stood. “No one touches Irial without my consent. No one not of our court enters this house unless I summon them. No speaking of his injury to anyone outside the house. Increase the guards on Leslie.”

The Dark King paused as the fear of the only other person he loved being injured by Bananach swelled inside him.

Gabriel nodded, and the Dark King’s orders appeared in ink on Gabriel’s flesh as the words were spoken. “Leslie will be safe,” he promised. Then after a minute, he prompted, “And Bananach? And the ones leaving the court to stand with her?”

The Dark King blinked at Gabriel. “She cannot enter our home, but Irial said we could not kill her without killing Sorcha and, thus, all the rest of us. I will not send forces after her. . . . The others . . . I don’t care what you do to them once we get through this. Not right now. Right now, Irial is what matters.”

A brief frown flashed across Gabriel’s face, but he nodded.

Niall walked over and dimmed the light. “Wake me when the next healer arrives.”

And then he lay down on the floor beside Irial’s bed and closed his eyes.