Page 166 of Cathmoir's Sons

They were doing a ritual, but they weren’t calling the moon. The Mother doesn’t demand blood sacrifice. But I know who does.

“Did the Green Man listen, Gwyn?” I demand, pointing at the broken body. “Will he protect you from the Mother’s judgment?”

“Silence!” Emnyre and a phalanx of Darkswerds stride toward the ancient tree from the far end of the grove, splitting the circle of druadh. “You have no voice here, carrion-eater. You have no rights here, in the seat of the high fae. Begone!”

I tip my head back and look up at the crescent moon that shines down on the grove. “But I do have a voice. It carries as far as the crow’s call. All the way to the moon. I call Her down.Matir.”

“Matir,” I repeat, and my sisters call with me.

“Matir,” I repeat, and my army calls with me.

“Silence!” Emnyre bellows and looses an arrow of fire from a bow strung with wind.

Law lunges in front of me, his hands wreathed in spirals of flame. Is a wild fae faster than a high fae’s enchanted arrow? I have a second to wonder as the arrow arcs toward me.

But I never find out.

A small figure, shrouded in mist, cloaked and cowled in moonlight, appears in the middle of the grove. She reaches out her hand and catches the arrow. It disintegrates between her fingers. She flicks a cloud of ash to the ground.

“Would you deny the Mother’s justice, Knight of Oak?” The Mother’s soft voice drops like a stone into the utter silence following her appearance. I don’t even hear anyone breathing.

“No, Mother.” Emnyre’s voice is strangled.

“Oak King, do you not rise to greet your maker?” The Mother asks.

Bark creaks and splinters. The Oak King struggles into a pained crouch, the bare branches over his head waving like they’ve been caught in a hurricane. “Mother.”

“Son,” she says, low and gentle. “Seventh son of my seventh son.Sunús gerlós. Sunús juwon. Sunús aiwós. I entrusted my second children to you. The children of Fire and Air. I left Faery in your hands. What have you done?”

“Mother,” the Oak King repeats, an entreaty.

“Ask for my forgiveness, son.”

“The Mother’s forgiveness is moonlight,” the Oak King whispers.

Yellow leaves shower down from the oaks of the grove, drifting into piles at the Mother’s feet.

The Mother scuffs her bare toes through the leaves, shaking her head. “Come forth, vassals of the Oak King. Come and greet your Mother.”

A dozen fae shimmer into shape around the Mother. Some, like Callan, I recognize. Some, like Koitre, High Lord of Rowanfury, I know only from legend.

Callan, who is wearing tartan pajamas and looking like he was dragged out of bed, is the most ordinary-looking among them. Wile of Baelboggan, his spangled skin glimmering in the moonlight, his spiral horn longer and sharper than any unicorn’s, is the most exotic. He has competition, however, in Leathan of Linkester, whose ice-skin shimmies and cracks constantly, dripping black blood into the grass, and Hew of Willowroth, whose features and limbs are nearly obscured by the iridescent vines sprouting from his head.

The fae lords take in their surroundings, bowing first to the Mother and then to the Oak King.

“Is this all of you?” The Mother asks. “All of those oathed and bound to the high king?”

The silence of the grove is absolute until it’s broken by a deep, familiar voice. “No, it ain’t.”

The Cait, flesh and shade, part to let the demon, his eyes, crown, and wings blazing, step into the clearing around the Mother.

“I ain’t one of yours,” Jou says. “Maybe I’m not welcome in your sight. But you can taste the truth in my words. TheTwittering Throng’s given oaths, spilled blood, broken bone with my kind. If you’re gonna judge these, judge those, too.”

The Mother tilts her head like a bird and holds her small hand out to Jou. He bows and plants a courtly kiss on her knuckles. She strokes his crimson dreadlocks.

“All are mine, son of Earth and Fire,” she says. “None are unwelcome in my sight. I recognize you, D’Asmodei. I taste the truth in your words. I call those who have given oaths, spilled blood, and broken bone with the Oak King to stand before me and submit to my judgment.”

The Mother steps back and a spinning disk of fire opens in the spot where she’d stood. A towering demoness, her white horns rising higher than Emnyre’s, her skin-tight leathers running with a green liquid that scorches the grass, steps out of the portal. She’s followed by a much smaller figure in a long gown that glistens like pearl in the moonlight. When I see the light glint off her horns, so like the tiny horns on the skull in the tin tucked into my mantle, I realize who she is.

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