Page 71 of Rebel in the Deep

I want to argue, but there’s no time. We stagger our way through the door, the air so cold that my breath ghosts the space before my lips. The voices of the Cwn Annwn are fading, a great sound rising in its place. It takes my exhausted mind a few steps to place it.

Screaming.

Bastian picks up his pace, and I match him without hesitation. We burst past two spatters of blood on the walls, but don’t see a single soul until we shove through the doors and out onto the street. There’s no point in subterfuge now; no one is paying us the least bit of attention.

Lyari is a relatively flat island, and the city itself is nestled in between two small hills on either side. I catch sight of riotous clouds overhead, but I can’tseeanything. “We need to get higher.”

“We need tosave her.”

“We can’t do that if we don’t know where she is.” I don’t wait for Bastian to argue further. I grab two fistfuls of air and shove it down, propelling myself up onto the roof. I put too much power behind it and nearly topple off before I find my footing.

When I see what the Wild Hunt is doing to the city, I almost wish I had fallen. It’s…massive. Beyond comprehension. The only hunting parties I’ve seen are among ships, but I thought I had an idea of what a hunt on land might be. I was wrong. This is no gathering of dozens of warriors, eldritch or otherwise; this is ahorde.

It sweeps through the streets of Lyari like a tsunami, mist and hounds and warriors on horses. Some of them look similar to the creature that answered Siobhan’s call. Some of them are more humanoid…and some significantly less. As they ride away from us, I catch sight of a hunter that seems to be made entirely of tentacles and wet laughter.

“Do you see her?” Bastian calls from the ground.

I shake my head slowly. “There are hounds, but I don’t know which one is Siobhan.” Or Morrigan, for that matter. The giant beasts dance around and under the hooves of equally giant horses with glowing eyes, whose every exhale seems to add to the mist following the group.

“We need to go after them!”

How? Even if we could find her, how could we possibly fightthis?

Despair rises in me, so strong that I choke on it. I’ve barely come to terms with the reality ofwanting—ofloving. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. If we were on a suicide mission, then we would go out together, martyrs to the greater good. She wasn’t supposed to sacrifice everything and leave us to pick up the pieces.

I love Bastian—I don’t think I ever truly stopped, for all that it turned to hate for a time—but I love Siobhan, too. One is not a replacement for the other. The relationships are similar, but not identical. How am I supposed to go on when half of my heart now rides with the Wild Hunt?

“Nox.”

“Coming.” The descent is just as chaotic and rushed as the ascent. I hit the ground too hard and my knees buckle, butBastian is there to grab my arm, already rushing us in the wake of the Hunt.

There’s no way we should be able to close the distance, but magic is a strange thing and sometimes the rules of reality bend around it. That’s the only explanation for our reaching the docks seconds behind the Hunt. Bastian almost keeps going, but I grab a fistful of his shirt and yank him to a stop before he can enter the mist churning around the Cwn Annwn—thetrueCwn Annwn. “You’ll join them.”

“You don’t know that!”

Yes, I do. I don’t know how, but I justknow. I take a step back, even though it’s pure agony to put more distance between us. The Hunt surges from one ship to the next, sending up screams and cries with each pause. I can’t tell if they’re killing their victims or sweeping them into the Hunt itself. Possibly a combination of both.

It takes seconds for them to clear every ship docked and start out across the water of the harbor, racing across the surface of the water as if it’s solid dirt. “We can’t catch them.”

Bastian takes one step farther and then hits his knees.“Siobhan!”he roars.

In the distance, one of the massive white hounds misses a step and slows. I rush forward and grab his shoulder. “Again! I see her!”

He draws in a full breath and, when he calls her name again, he puts the full force of his glamour magic behind it. I use my wind magic to increase the range, desperation pushing me hard. The result is amplifying the sound until each syllable rings like a bell out across the water.“Siobhan, come back to us!”

For a moment, I think it might work. She hesitates, going so far as to turn around and look at us. But then the Cwn Annwn call and a horn sounds and she’s gone, sweeping after the Hunt as they leave the harbor and descend upon Threshold.

Bastian’s shoulders shake against my palms. “What have we done? Did it even work or was it all for nothing?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Come on.” I make myself release his shoulders and head slowly toward the closest ship with crimson sails. It’s nestled between two mundane trading ships, both of which seem to have their entire crews on their respective decks.

A burly person leans over the railing and shouts down to me. “What the fuck was that?”

There’s no reason to lie. For better or worse, today is the stuff legends are made of. “The Wild Hunt.”

They frown. “I don’t know what the fuck that is, sailor.”

I don’t expect them to. “Have you suffered losses?”

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