Page 66 of Ulune's Daughter

The Shades of Faery swirl around Kellan like eager puppies. They leap and cover her then crash to her feet. Some stick to her, draping off her shoulders and arms. A black cloak takes shape, a deep cowl draping around her face, the cape dropping from her shoulders to her ankles in long sweeps of blue-black ... feathers. A cloak of raven feathers envelops my mate. She lifts her hands, her blue nails curving into long claws. The swirl of Shades around her rises into a scream. Faces of those long dead, nothing but bones still clinging to their old shape, faces of the newly dead, rotting flesh shredding as their jaws stretch in an ear-splitting cacophony, tumble through the Air around my mate.

Beside me, Luca hisses, a sound of awe and warning.

Without the Shades surrounding us, we should have diminished into the shapes we wear in the mortal world. Luca still towers beside me while Dex and Mags hulk at my feet. Has my mate somehow drawn the cavern into Faery? What side of the Veil are we on now? I can’t tell. But Rhodes shouldn’t be able to see us and he clearly can.

Without the protection of the Veil, this is not the safest place for us to be in the face of my mate’s rising power.

I growl at Mags and Dex. I don’t know if I can protect them from Kellan’s magic. Luca can take care of himself and I have no fear of my mate’s power, but I don’t want my cousins caught up in whatever she is summoning.

Mags and Dex leap to their feet and bound between me and Luca, where the umbra of Faery clings to our bodies. I don’t feel any rending of the Veil as they disappear but I also don’t feel the warmth of the Summerlands on my fur. Kellan has created some strange limbo, a half-place, in this cave, a poisoned cup of its own, held deep in the Mother’s breast.

Once my cousins are safe, I focus again on my mate. She’s sketching sigils in the Air with her blue claws, cascades of glimmering, barely visible shapes falling from her hands to the ground. The wind whistling around the cave at her command nips and gnaws through my fur. Only the Mirk can breach a Cait’s natural armor. Can my mate somehow control the Mirk as well? I know the Mirk was once part of Faery itself. When the Seelie forced what they found ugly and unpalatable out of the light, those parts of Faery too dark even for the Unseelie became the Mirk. Has my mate’s cyhyraeth blood called the darkest parts of Faery to her hand?

The swirling breeze gains a red edge. I glance at my twin and see tiny red droplets streaming away from his face and chest and arms. Looking down at myself, I see the same blood mist rising from my fur. My mate called it a hungry wind.

If she needs my blood to work her magic, she can have it.

Luca must come to the same conclusion because he makes no attempt to ward himself. As the blood thickens to a red haze that all but obscures my mate and the human, my mate raises her hands over her head. She spreads her claws and the red wind plunges into the pool, turning it crimson.

“Now, Rhodes,” my mate cries.

The human drops the silver cup into the red water.

The wind dies. The cavern is utterly silent for a moment.

Then the water turns black and explodes out of the pool. It hangs in the Air for a moment, a massive, midnight wave. The cavern shakes like a bomb has gone off. Kellan drops to her knees.

Then the water crashes back into the pool. Pure and crystalline, with barely a ripple.

The cloak of feathers wisps away from my mate’s shoulders. The Shades crawl back to us, creeping over my feet, up my thighs, circling my chest, kissing my cheeks, before the Veil surrounds us again.

Rhodes drops the water-wall and stumbles out of the pool, catching Kellan up in his arms.

That should be me. She should be in my arms.

“Are you okay?” he asks her.

That should be my deep voice comforting her.

“Yeah,” Kellan says slowly. “Just a little shaken. You didn’t lose my cup, did you?”

“No.” Rhodes holds out a hand and the cup soars up out of the pool into his grasp.

“Good, because that still belongs in a museum.”

“Sure, Indy,” Rhodes says. Kellan chuckles.

I grind my fangs.

“You ready to get out of here?” Kellan asks.

“More than ready. Do I need to ask if it worked?”

“I’m pretty sure it did, but only time will tell, and I don’t really want to stick around for whatever reckoning Maher thinks he’s due. Rome or Chicago?”

“I could really go for deep dish right now,” the human responds.

Are they talking about pizza? In the wake of that seismic summoning?

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