Radiant Shadows

Chapter 31

Bananach’s face was painted in patterns drawn in wet ashes and woad. Her wings were charred at the tips, and the blood on her arms was still fresh. “Your Hounds fought well, Gabriel.”

He growled, but didn’t go to check on them. “They’re not done yet.”

“Yet here I am.” Bananach spread her hands wide.

Ani felt the Hunt. Her mortality was gone. For the first time, she could feel a connection to the Hunt. Those not here already fighting would come, would knock down the walls, would bring blood and death into her home. But not soon enough. Gabriel knew it too.

A full score of Ly Ergs filed into the house. Other faeries, some Ani did not recognize, followed.

Devlin stepped forward. “Do not do this.”

None of Bananach’s faeries attacked, but they had spread out so that the exits were blocked. They waited—for Bananach to act or speak. Her faeries weren’t strong enough to overcome all of the fighters in the room, but they were numerous enough that there would be injuries.

Silently, Ani slid out a sgian dubh and handed it to her brother. Beside her, Seth had a short sword and several of his own knives. She pulled out one of the holy irons; her other sgian dubh was in her ankle holster.

As Bananach advanced into the house, Irial continued to move so that Ani was directly behind him; Niall did the same with Seth. Gabriel positioned himself so he was behind Devlin, but still in front of both Niall and Irial.

Devlin took another step forward, away from them, closer to War. “Talk to me. We can talk, can’t we?”

She lifted a bone knife and slashed open his arm dispassionately—muscles severed and flesh ravaged. “You were nothing more than an idea Reason had, but without my pulse… without me, you were lifeless.”

He grabbed her wrist with his other hand.

Bananach reached out and pressed her fingers into the wound. “I think I want that pulse, that blood, my blood, back now.”

“If you give your word that Ani will be untouched, I will give it to you freely.” Devlin was motionless as she ripped open his skin. “Sister, please, spare Ani.”

“Stop,” Bananach screeched. Her hand was still dug into his bleeding arm. “I must do as I must. Seth was never meant to live. The Hound didn’t do as she was told, but there are choices. There are always choices, Brother.”

She turned her gaze to Ani. “Come to me, little Hound, and I’ll spare them. Two lives I will give you. Your choice.” Bananach’s wings opened wide, and the shadows in the room shivered at the sight. “Would you save your king? Your lover? Your father? Two lives if you give me yours.”

Ani stepped up between her former king and her father. Her blade was unsheathed, but no one there—including Bananach—thought that a Hound with a blade was strong enough to be a threat to War.

“Spare all of their lives,” Ani said. “I’ll give you—”

“You can have my life,” Devlin interrupted. He put himself back in front of Bananach. “You can have my allegiance if you stop this.”

“You. You betrayed me. You took her, hid her. Why?” Bananach looked devastated. “You were my own. Our child…” She lunged at Ani with two bone knives—one in each hand now—as she spoke.

Irial shoved Ani to the side, and Bananach drove both knives hilt-deep into his stomach. Instead of falling, though, he stayed upright between Ani and Bananach, keeping his body as a barrier to reaching Ani.

“Iri!” Ani screamed. She wanted to go around him, to launch herself at the raven-faery, but to do so belittled the sacrifice Irial had made. He’d taken the wound that was to be hers, and she wasn’t about to ignore that in order to satisfy her own rage.

Not now at least.

Devlin grabbed Bananach and pulled her away from Irial and Ani. She didn’t resist as he held her to him. Instead, she released the knives, sliding her hands over the white bone and letting Irial’s blood coat it.

Only then did Irial move. Now that Bananach was contained, he stepped backward. Niall caught him and lowered him to the ground at Ani’s side. Irial’s characteristic grace was absent; instead, he moved with almost mortal clumsiness as he tried not to jar the blades that pierced his abdomen.

The abyss-guardians that clung to both the former Dark King and the current one suddenly stood like warriors in the room. Ani had never seen so many of the shadowy figures. The entire room seemed populated with them. Steady flames of darkness formed an impenetrable wall of shadows encircling the Dark Kings—and Ani.

War smiled at them from the other side of the black wall, and behind her, Devlin, Seth, and Gabriel fought the Ly Ergs.

Inside their shadow fortress, Niall knelt beside Irial and pulled back the shredded shirt that covered Irial’s wounds. “Iri…” He looked like he was in as much pain as Irial.

“Hush.” Irial reached down and yanked out the first knife. Blood spurted from the wound, and Irial let out a small grunt of pain.

“Hold on for—” Niall started, but Irial had already taken hold of the second one and pulled it free as well.

In Irial’s hand was a bloodied hilt: the blade itself was missing.

“Left hand for poison. Not solid now.” Irial turned his head and smiled at Ani. “Not your fault, pup.”

“Iri…” She dropped to the floor. “We need… you can’t…”

“Devlin’s what you need. Go with him.” Irial looked away from her then. His gaze was only for Niall. “Trust yourself. I…” His words faded as a spasm of pain shook him.

Niall pulled off his own shirt and pressed it to the bleeding gashes. “You’ll be fine. Just—”

“No. Listen.” Irial wrapped his hand around Niall’s wrist. They seemed to forget that there were others in the room, that War was there, that a battle waited outside their shadowy barrier.

Irial kept his hand on Niall’s wrist and whispered, “Wish I hadn’t been king when we met.”

“Iri—”

“Get them gone. Safe. Not here.” Irial let go of Niall and pulled himself away. “You too. Get out of here. Now.”

The expressions that crossed Niall’s face were ones Ani didn’t dare name, but she tasted everything. Irial wasn’t the only one wishing things had been different. Hoping they still could be. The Dark King stood. Niall’s softness was only for Irial—and Irial had asked him to repress that tenderness. The shadows in the room shuddered as Niall crossed the barrier that they’d formed.

Ani started to stand, but Irial took her hand in his. “Not yet.”

Niall was every bit the King of Nightmares in that moment. The rage that played under the edge of his emotions welled up like black tar. Ani thought she would choke on it—the loss, the fury, the vengeance. Here was the true Dark King.

“Twice now you’ve struck what is mine.” Niall bit the words off as he stalked toward Bananach. “The girl Tish was mine to keep safe. Irial is mine.”

“Was,” Bananach pronounced. “He’ll not survive the fortnight. He knows it.”

A roar filled the room as Niall gave voice to the rage and grief that they’d all felt. He punched Bananach, shoved spikes of dark light into her skin. “You do not hurt what is mine.”

She stayed motionless, said nothing.

Niall didn’t look away from her as he spoke. “Leave here. Leave Ani alone. You are banished.”

Bananach tilted her head, looking inhuman, but her words were calm. “War cannot be banished. You know that, Gancanagh. You aren’t going to win. One by one, you lose. I grow strong as you fall.”

Niall didn’t take his attention from Bananach. “You gave me a vow of fealty. I could kill you for—”

“No, you couldn’t,” Bananach crowed. “My betrayer told you. Sorcha will die, and then all of you will die. Kill me, and I still win. Is the little Hound worth it? Is your anger over Irial reason enough?”

Then Gabriel’s voice whispered inside Ani’s mind: Go to Faerie.

Ani looked up and saw her father in the doorway to the kitchen with Rabbit and Seth. They were opening a path for her exit.

Ani, Gabriel snarled inside her. Get them out of here.

She felt it then: the Hunt was here. The Hounds filled the too-small house.

Now, Gabriel added.

Seth, Devlin, and Rabbit weren’t making much progress against the Ly Ergs, but they were keeping the tide from reaching her and Irial.

“Please, pup?” Irial said. “The Hunt won’t fight as well with you and Rab here.”

“Come with—” she started.

“No.” He had pulled himself to a sitting position with the aid of several abyss-guardians. “I stay with Niall…. Can’t really run right now anyhow.”

Gabriel and Niall were in a blur of violence with Bananach. In the hallway, Ly Ergs and other faeries Ani didn’t know were already fighting with Hounds. One Hound toppled a shelf onto a cluster of Ly Ergs. The red-handed faeries were scurrying everywhere like vermin. Several thistle-fey accompanied them. One female Hound grabbed the fire poker and speared it into the leg of a thistle-fey, pinning him to the floor with the brass shaft.

Ani made her way toward the kitchen, where Devlin was launching knives from the kitchen block. His aim was still precise one-handed, and despite the blood running down his other arm, the look in his eyes told her that he’d rather fight.

If they didn’t get Seth to Faerie, there soon wouldn’t be a Faerie. If they stayed, they wouldn’t all survive. This wasn’t a fight they could win.

But it still took every once of control, more than Ani thought she possessed, to say, “Let’s go.”