Page 163 of Ulune's Daughter

Itear through my mate’s castle. Where could she be? I already know she’s not here; the gates were closed when I arrived. I had to scale the outer wall and brave a hobbyhorse with a horn in the courtyard to follow my mate’s scent.

She’s not in the Donnwater, my twin thinks frantically.

I know she’s not. Luca thought he caught her scent there. I tried to tell him it was just the lingering touch of her magic, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s not thinking clearly. He hasn’t since our hearts caught fire. He ran out of an exam and came racing back to Cait House to find our mate, but she never returned from campus. We tracked her to her office—where her scent merged with that useless human’s—and then into Faery.

Tiny faces topped with blue and white caps poke out of the castle’s windows as I scale the tower. My claws dig splintery furrows into the glassy stone. I give my bond with my twin a hard yank. He abandons the stream and bounds across the field toward the castle, ignoring the tempting sheep.

I finally reach the top of the tower. Her scent is clear here, still mingled with that fucking human’s. I’m going to disembowel him if he’s led her into danger. I sniff all around the parapet, finding where they stood together. Where Kellan’s scent gains the dark edge of Caileán’s.

That would reassure me if my heart wasn’t still burning, burning.

A faint shimmer in the aether shows me where Caileán tore open a gate.

They left from up here, I think to my twin.Hurry.

He yowls at me from the courtyard. His claws scrabble in the paw-holds I left for him. I pace back and forth, growling impatiently. Luca’s claws finally appear over the edge of the tower. Panting, he heaves himself up onto the parapet. He bounds to where the aether shows our mate’s passage and sniffs all around it.

Here!

I don’t tell him I know. I just claw open the passage our mate used and race after her fading scent.

I nearly land on a woman’s back as I bound out of Faery. I twist and land in a clear spot a few feet away. My twin darts out after me, the Veil pouring off him like smoke. Two women step away from him but don’t scream at the appearance of a pair of seven-foot, saber-toothed black panthers in their midst. They’re all too focused on what’s happening in a stone ruin atop a small hill three hundred yards ahead of me.

A man in a green cloak and golden helmet stands in the ruins, holding a trident. His lips move; he’s singing softly. As are the hundred women gathered in a crescent around him. They’re all singing different songs. None are loud enough to drown out the others. They mingle like water, building on one another, rising and rising.

The man in the green cloak points the trident at the sky. A lance of green flame stabs up at the clouds. Lightning forks down, striking the stones. The clouds break overhead and eerie blue light bathes the ruins.

A voice from beyond the man in the green cloak roars, “What have you done?”

“Turned the tide,” the man with the trident says. “Quieted the storm. What I will do again, and again, and again, until this world edges away from chaos. Towards peace.”

There’s another roar. It sets off dogs baying. I begin to slink toward the sound, weaving through the crowd of women, my belly almost to the ground, seeking Caileán’s scent among the crowd. My lashing tail slaps Luca’s muzzle as he follows on my heels.

The roaring voice rises again, “Kill them all.”

The baying rises, gains an edge that saws in my ears. Those are no normal dogs.

Barghests, the goblin dogs of Faery.

I don’t know where we are, or who these women are, although I see a few familiar faces in the crowd. Or why they’ve all gathered here, around the man in the green cloak. I spot three Darkswerds among the stones with him. Barghests, Darkswerds, my Crow Queen. Far too much of Faery is gathered here in this human place, among the ruins of one of their holy houses.

“If you can’t fight, into the center,” the man in the green cloak shouts. “Raise wards. Back up the fighters. Fighters on the outside. Protect the horae.”

The crowd shifts back from the hill, tightening into a circle. Silvery wards rise, but in a glance, I can tell there are not enough.

Hundreds of barghests, their eyes flaming, their fangs dripping red, have gathered on the far side of the ruins. They charge, splitting around the stones, evading the knot of Darkswerds. As many as the faery warriors cut down, there are ten to take their place.

The circle of women draws tighter as the goblin dogs reach them. Two massive snakes rise up out of the group of women. To my left, a black snake slaps her tail, crushing a dozen goblin dogs. Ahead of me, a cobra as tall as I am long spits a stream of venom thirty feet into the wave of barghests. Kellan’s disapproving friend, Carrie Prince, by her scent. Dozens fall as the venom eats away at their bodies.

Dozens more spring over the fallen.

Another spear of destruction splits through the charge of goblin dogs. This one not of venom but of shadows. As the circle of women grows tighter, they pull away from Caileán, leaving her standing with the useless human, their backs to me. Caileán stretches her hand out and a black tornado blasts out of it, rending flesh and bone from a dozen barghests.

The goblin dogs realize they’re facing something other than soft humans and a big snake. They change course to circle Caileán and Rhodes.

Sending them directly into my path.

I tear into them. Their matted, hairy hides are no match for my claws. Their bones crunch under my fangs. I bellow at them, a sound not heard in this world in thousands of years. A sound that belongs in Faery, not in the human world.

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