Page 46 of Kings and Monsters

"You heard him. Let's ride," Eirianwen commanded. Aiden walked out of the temple before sending fireballs into the forest to cover their escape.

Live to fight them another day, Eirianwen told herself and headed south, heart sore and furious.

Bleddyn was pacingin front of the final marker stone as he waited for Eirianwen to arrive. Since taking her blood, he now felt her and the faint pulse of her magic moving about inside of him. Something had happened at the temple, but he couldn't determine what, and it set his teeth on edge. He had sent Bran and Madoc back to the Night Courts, and the remaining men were tensely guarding the forest surrounding them.

A distant crashing through the brush heralded the arrival of Eirianwen and Aiden. She looked fierce, and her anger was evident in every inch of her.

"What happened?" he asked, holding her horses' bridle as she vaulted from her saddle.

"I'll tell you later," she said meaningfully. "The temple was barely protected, and we were gone again before the queen's knights arrived. How did you go?"

"Madoc and his men killed off a few patrols. Bran and I moved the markers without incident."

"Do you feel any different?" she asked. She was one of the few people who knew of Bleddyn's tie to the Unseelie lands and the burdens that came with it.

"It feels…wider in my mind. My senses are stretching out further, so it must be working." He gave her a smile to try and reassure her, but her frown grew deeper. "Also something we will discuss later. Let's just get this done."

They approached the final marker, a jagged black stone finger streaked with silver. Bleddyn offered her his hand,and after a moment's hesitation, Eirianwen took it. Neither mentioned the smears of ash and blood that covered them.

"With your permission?" he asked, waiting for her nod before he reached out his magic to find hers. He swallowed hard as the heady rush of their combined power moved over him. Her cool face remained impassive as she looked up at him, her blown out pupils and the tremble in her hands the only signs of the high riding her.

"Easy, Eirianwen. My power has changed over the centuries." Bleddyn warned her as her own magic pulled and consumed his. "Control the flow. You know how." She nodded slowly and placed their hands on the stone.

Ancient power joined their own and Bleddyn struggled to focus on the task at hand. His senses screamed as they heightened; he could feel the currents of power in the earth, in the trees and waters, the figures of the soldiers reducing to pulsing lights in his periphery. The scent of Eirianwen was so strong, he could taste her skin in the back of his throat. Her magic had changed with her transformation. It was deeper and darker and called out to him, desire whispering over his skin before he could hide it from her.

"Now who needs control," she chastised. He didn't want to control; he wanted to press her up against the stone and…Bleddyn shut down every emotion and thought except the task at hand. He gripped the stone and forced his will onto the ancient magic.

The stone complied with their commands, and they walked slowly behind it as they guided it to its new position. As it hit the earth and reconnected, Bleddyn crumpled to his knees and tried not to vomit.

"Easy," Eirianwen crooned, resting her hands on his shoulders to support him. "It's done now. Let's get you home."

"Home," he murmured, his mind burning. It was precisely this feeling of being stretched in a million directions that was the reason he had never wanted to be the king of the Unseelie. How could one body take it? It was too much power for any one being.

With Eirianwen's subtle help, Bleddyn got himself on the back of his horse, and slowly they let each other's magic go, leaving a feeling of spring and darkness under his skin.

Back at the Night Court,the warriors were celebrating the victory over the marker stones and the additional trouble for the queen. Eirianwen left Bleddyn to be pulled into the crowd of revelers, backing out of the throng and going to find where the body of the girl had been placed.

Two warriors carried it on a stretcher to her mansion where she had it placed in one of the lower cellars where it was cool. Even though she was tired from the huge magical expenditure and the deep gnawing thirst for blood, she filled basins with clean, perfumed water, and began to wash the body. She was so lost in thought that she only registered Bleddyn's presence before he opened the door to the cellar.

"You should be out celebrating," Eirianwen said, stitching the wound in the girl's chest closed.

"Daesyn is handling it admirably. He's young and has the appetite for it. I'm a stranger to these people." Bleddyn sat down on a wooden stool, his tall body making it look like children's furniture. "Who is the girl?"

"I don't know. The queen sacrificed her at the temple." Eirianwen tied a knot in the thread and cut it with a small knife. "I couldn't just…leave her there. Her parents will be found so they can put her to rest properly." Her eyes welled unexpectedlyas she wrapped the body in linen before carefully washing her hands in fresh, hot water. How many bodies had she wrapped over the years? How many more would she tend the same way before it was over?

"I'm so tired of this, Bleddyn," she admitted, unable to turn to face him. "I've been fighting for so long that I no longer have the energy for it. I'm so tired of watching my people die. So tired of war."

"I am too," he said. "It's why I've left the revels to the young and passionate. One more final stand against the queen—that's all I have left in me. It is why I tried to create a peace treaty with her or force her into a position to finally face me so I could kill her. Laughable I know, but I'm exhausted by the fighting and ruling."

Eirianwen hugged herself and turned to him. His skin and clothes were smeared with ash and hair tousled by the wind, and he had never appeared so real or beautiful. She forced herself to look away so she could say what she needed to.

"I never really understood the kingship bond with the land until today. I knew they were one, but I didn't realize the burden of it until I joined my power with yours, and I felt it. I've never understood why you didn't want the crown, why you didn't return to claim it. Even using you as a conduit, it was so consuming, as if it was eating away at everything I was. Nothing was important, and yet every single thing from the stones in the earth and birds in the air was the most important thing in the world. It was mine to command, to reshape any way I wanted. They were there to obey. It was so wonderful and horrible. I can still feel it in me like a phantom pulse…" She gripped her biceps tightly, panic seizing her.

Bleddyn caught her by the elbows as her knees buckled. "Let me take you back upstairs. You need to rest. You've done your duty to the girl."

Eirianwen let him help her up to the kitchens, sitting her down at the scrubbed oak table. She watched him with quiet amusement while he made her rosehip tea and arranged her some bread and cheese onto a wooden board.

"You seem quite practiced at that," she smiled when he set it down in front of her.

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