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  I lunged toward the knoll, but Kellee caught my arm. “There’s no time,” he warned. Behind him, lightning cracked through a purple sky.

  We couldn’t fight the Hunt, not even with all of us here.

  Sota looked at the sky, his red eye expanding to absorb whatever data he saw beyond my spectrum. “We have six minutes to hide.”

  Hiding wouldn’t help. Thousands upon thousands of fae had tried. Nothing escaped the Hunt.

  Kellee returned to the carriage and the restless horses. With his claws, he sliced through the vine-reins holding them in place and walked one to me. The horse’s eyes rolled. Its nostrils flared. The animal was close to bolting.

  “You ride, and don’t look back,” Kellee said. Nodding to Sota, he added, “Go with her. Your presence will shield her.”

  “What about you?” Sota asked.

  Kellee took the reins from the other flame-touched horse, and sinking his hand into its fiery mane, he hauled himself onto the beast’s bare back. The fire didn’t hurt him. “I’ll draw it away.” He tightened the reins, bringing the horse under control as much as possible.

  Nobody outruns the Hunt.

  “Kellee…?” He couldn’t stop the Hunt alone.

  His horse shied and stamped on the spot, trying to unseat him. He yanked on the reins and leaned closer to its neck. “Do it, Kesh.”

  “How will we find you?” I placed my hand on my horse’s back and one in its mane, expecting heat but finding it cool, and hauled myself onto its warm back. The horse stamped on the spot.

  “I’ll find you.” He dug his heels into his horse’s middle and they sprung forward, toward the knoll. “Go!”

  Taking Sota’s hand, I pulled him onto the horse behind me. His arms clamped around my waist.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  The sky boiled. Clouds became rolling mountains, and inside the storm, an enormous figure took shape, its two eyes like two blood moons.

  Kellee’s horse reared and screamed its fear. The wind tore in, blasting across the land, trying to flatten the grass. Kellee’s beastly eyes glowed in the sudden darkness. “Go!”

  I kicked my horse. Its flaming hooves dug in, and it drove into the trees so fast it almost unseated me. I had hold of the reins, but I doubted the animal cared that Sota and I were on its back. Fear had it in its clutches now.

  Hunkering down, I clamped my thighs tight against the warm flanks and scanned Faerie’s thick undergrowth as it blurred by. Branches snagged and whipped at my face and clothes. Faster, the horse galloped, its heart a drum, its breathing ragged and wild. Sota’s grip tightened. Faster, until there was nothing but the hammered breathing, blurred bushes, and the blind hope that we’d get away and Kellee wouldn’t do something foolish.

  Chapter 18

  Talen

  The knoll walls moved and groaned. Its lights throbbed in a dark, warning red. Hands spread against those walls, Sirius poured power through the touch. His autumnal reds glowed, his outline a crackle of energy. It wasn’t enough. The knoll was not letting us go, not while the Hunt was close. And it was close. Its oily touch probed at the back of my mind for a way into my fear, where it would root around and turn over my fears, using them against me.

  And as Sirius fought the knoll, somewhere above, Kellee, Sota, and Kesh faced the Hunt alone.

  I touched two fingers to my temple. <> The warcruiser’s thoughts touched my own, slipping in around those of the Hunt. The ship had no voice, that was what a pilot was for, but her emotions were clear. Sparking, crackling fear. Sharp anxiety. <>

  Her answer was acceptance and loyalty. Shinj was coming.

  Chapter 19

  Kellee

  The blood of Faerie’s dead king sang in my veins, setting ablaze my thirst for battle. Sickle-shaped claws stretched, desperate for purchase. Raw, unseelie strength poured through muscle and bone. The restlessness I’d been feeling since drinking Oberon dry coalesced into power, and as I stared down a nightmare the size of a mountain, I smiled.

  Inside the storm—jabbed by lightning—a man-shaped figure reared up, but it was no more man than the sky was. It studied me, its attention everywhere, on my skin and sliding under it, seeking the heart.

  My horse stamped and screamed, shaking its head, but the horse was a wild, proud thing too, like me. The beast was mine to control, like the long-dead beasts of Valand. It would not flee.

  “The last vakaru…” The voice seemed so loud it might shatter my skull, but the words weren’t spoken. They sounded in my head, insubstantial like dreams. “One of the brothers created you, the one whose blood you stole. Did his death taste sweet, vakaru? Did it taste like vengeance for the millions of vakaru lives he took? Did it taste like justice?”

  Justice. I knew it well.

  The storm rolled closer, pouring across the forest like smoke. It gathered in the meadow and turned the grassland to a lake of darkness. It could reach out and crush me like it had crushed Aeon. But while it was focused on me, Kesh was escaping.

  The blackness swirled around, making my horse snort and paw at the earth. Its flaming mane blazed brighter, seeing off the dark as we danced around, following the dark’s leading edge.

  “Is that what you are? Justice?” I called.

  The darkness became a figure again, but only as tall as my horse. It had no features, just an outline of someone vaguely male, and the eyes… if I looked too long in those eyes, I’d hear the screams of all the immortal souls it had taken. Forever trapped, forever punished. That fate could be mine.

  “Justice? Yes. You have the taint of a thousand souls on you, lawman. Have you not killed as many as the prince who created you?”

  I had, but not by choice. “Do you blame the slave for the actions of its master?”

  The Hunt hissed its displeasure, startling my horse. My words had struck close to something it felt. Did it count itself a slave or a master?

  “Oberon created the vakaru to kill, and when we fought his design, he killed them all.”

  “All but one…” The voice poured into my thoughts, coating them in oil, but I was already unseelie and part of Faerie’s dark, where this thing had been birthed.

  “What do you want from us?”

  “Freedom.”

  “You already have it.”

  “No. It began with the death of a king, but it has not ended. There is one left who must die for me to be free.”

  “Eledan?”

  “The Wild Prince. He has the key…”

  Key…

  A memory bounced back. Eledan, his forearms raised and brought together. The warfae marks shifting, realigning, becoming one—becoming the key to stopping the Hunt. He had shown me the truth, and now the Hunt was inside my head, diving into the memory, trying to rip it free. The dark blinded and the howling storm deafened, until all I knew was that memory, turned over and over: Eledan revealing the key etched into his skin. I couldn’t hide it. The Hunt flowed, filling me up. The horse screamed, but I no longer felt the beast beneath me. Just the dark.

  Was this death?

  No, not for me.

  I’d fought this long, come this far, I was not giving in now. Doubling down, I pulled on the parts that didn’t know how to surrender. Poison for blood, rage and thirst for the kill. Ageless. Ancient. I would not allow the memory of my vakaru to die with me here.

  Clutching my head, I pulled on my faith for honor, for justice, for all the things I stood for and had done for centuries. The Hunt withdrew a beat. I remembered the lives I’d saved, the good from my recent past, all the wrongs I’d tried to right. I fought for the good and always had. The Hunt pulled back. It twitched and snarled, lashing out. “I did not come here to be mind-fucked by Faerie’s mistakes!”

  The dark twitched. The Hunt had faltered.

  Power burned me up, power and light, and Faerie… I felt Her then, the weight of the world, listening, watching, gu
iding. I’d felt it before, on another world in another time when I’d reigned over a people, but I’d known and loved Her then as Valand. Valand had been Faerie. I was part of Faerie too. This world was as much a part of me as my home had been. Her warmth flowed in, and instead of fighting it, I allowed Her to breathe into me. And Kesh, I felt her presence too, so warm, so light. Talen’s silvery touch wrapped closer, lending a sharp edge to the light burning through my veins. Sirius’s heat flared, and the horse reared, kicking at the dark. Sota’s metallic tek sizzled and itched, driving back the darkness.

  The Hunt folded in on itself, shrinking around its throbbing, warped center.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Despite the power connecting us, we weren’t ready.

  A roar cut through the air, coming in low overhead. I ducked in time to see the multicolored undercarriage of a vast warcruiser plunge downward.

  The Hunt pulsed and pulled back, retreating in on itself. Fleeing.

  Fire, born out of the heat of reentry, licked at the ship’s enormous bow, setting the sky ablaze. Her heat boiled away the Hunt’s darkness.

  Shinj would not be pulling up from the dive.

  Her bow hit the boiling darkness, and for a few breathless blinding moments, there was nothing, just light and silence. Then the shock wave hit.

  Chapter 20

  Talen

  “Shinj, no! No!” I slammed my hands to my head and forced the order home, but it was too late. The dive was critical. She would not survive. Don’t… A soft warmth reached me, like the last embrace from a friend I would never see again.

  “OPEN THE KNOLL NOW!” I grabbed Sirius. Fire flashed across my hand, as sharp and bright as a lightning strike, jolting me back.

  Sirius’s magic flooded the library, rolling over me in waves of scorching heat. Fire licked up his coat, over his shoulders, down his arms, and lapped at the knoll’s wall, where his hands burned into the stone. He strained against the knoll, trying to force the walls open, but either he wasn’t strong enough or his connection to the knoll was too weak, giving it the freedom to disobey his commands.

  “Sirius,” I warned, shaking the burn from my hand. “I don’t care how you do it, open the knoll.”

  His eyes flashed. Through gritted teeth, he said, “You. Are. Not. Helping.”

  The knoll lurched sideways. Shinj severed my link, cutting the connection so death wouldn’t drag me with her. I reeled back, suddenly unburdened. The ground quaked and roared, throwing me against a wall. Faerie screamed. Noise, and heat, and agony. It was too much, and I knew what it meant.

  Sirius clutched his head, trying to temper the wail. His magic spluttered and collapsed around him.

  The cacophony lasted just moments, but it had felt like years.

  A serene quiet fell, and an absence chilled my veins. The absence of a friend.

  The knoll’s door rumbled open, mocking me.

  Panting, Sirius leaned against the knoll wall. He lifted sorry eyes to me, knowing he’d failed.

  The Hunt was gone.

  And Shinj was dead.

  Chapter 21

  Kesh

  Kellee’s wild touch burned inside, like Talen’s bond had, only Kellee’s was a spicy heat that threatened as much as it aroused. Its sudden appearance yanked the breath from my lungs. Power blazed, fire on a touchpaper, and as the sensations stole my mind, I realized it wasn’t one touch I felt, but all of them… Kellee, Talen, Sirius, Sota, and even Shinj, the ship. In the sensory onslaught, the horse’s reins slipped from my fingers.

  Thunder rolled, but instead of ending, the noise rumbled louder and closer, like one of Calicto’s enormous earth-eating mining machines that would tunnel below the sinks, rattling our habitat containers.

  Not thunder.

  I glanced back, past Sota’s fierce expression. A mushroom cloud, made of purple fire cut with lightning, swallowed up the sky.

  The shock wave hit. The horse dropped beneath me. I tucked myself into a tight ball, hoping I didn’t hit something too hard on the way down. Sota’s grip clamped closed. Noise. Blood. Pain. Screaming. Not mine. Something other. It lasted an eternity, then cut off.

  I tested my arms and legs, easing myself open. Trees smoldered. Some had been torn from the ground and lay uprooted, their missing canopy revealing towers of smoke.

  “Kesh?” Sota gently pulled at my arm.

  “I’m all right.”

  Our ride, however, was not. A branch had skewered the animal through its chest. Its eyes were open but flat and unseeing.

  “We need to get back there.” I brushed my clothes down and tugged at my whip, making sure it was still fixed to my belt. Something terrible had happened.

  “Kellee said he’d find us. We should wait.”

  “I don’t care what he said. I’m not leaving them.”

  “But the Hunt?”

  “It’s gone …”

  He blocked my path, putting his tek-self in the way and puffing himself up. “You don’t know it’s gone, and Kellee said to wait. Kellee was right, I am your last defense. I should have stopped you from fighting Dagnu. I’ll protect you until the end, and if that means protecting you from yourself, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  He wasn’t budging from my path. He didn’t have his guns out, but the steely glare warned me not to push him. It had never occurred to me that he might stand against me like this, but I trusted him. Maybe this time he was right.

  “I feel it… It’s gone, Sota,” I said calmly. “I have to go back.”

  He held my stare, trying to pin me in place with his daunting laser eye. “I don’t like it. We should wait for Kellee.”

  “What if they need our help?” I straightened up to him. He lifted his chin. He was stubborn enough to argue with me, but then, he’d learned that from Kellee. “I know you want to protect me, but I don’t need protecting.”

  “If you don’t need protecting, why am I here? Why do you need me at all? Protecting you is my sole purpose. If you take that from me, what am I then?”

  I’d almost forgotten he wasn’t human. Just because he’d changed shape didn’t mean he’d forgotten his coded objectives. But this was more than code. It wasn’t just determination making him stand firm. Behind his code, a living mind needed to feel wanted. “You’re here because you’re my friend.”

  “Listen to your friend.” Ailish’s smooth voice poured into the clearing and over me. She emerged from the tree cover, draped in blue gowns, stepped over the fallen tree trunks, and drifted closer, half her pale face hidden by her hood’s shadow.

  Sota reflexively engaged his guns and angled his sights on her. She eyed him as if he were a curious toy.

  “It is not safe to return to the knoll. Come with me and we’ll wait for your vakaru.”

  “She’s made of water and dust,” Sota side-whispered.

  She chuckled. “And you are a metal man on Faerie. I have never seen anything like you before.”

  She offered me her slim, light-fingered hand. Her sleeve pulled back, revealing smooth skin so pale it was almost translucent enough to see the beat of blue blood through her veins.

  “Come with me, and we’ll talk more of the polestar. Those are the answers you seek?”

  “Do you trust her?” Sota whispered.

  “She can hear you, you know.” Did I trust her? No. On Faerie, the only thing I trusted was my crew. I didn’t even trust my own eyes or the picture of Ailish they showed me. “What was that explosion back there?”

  “The beginning of the war to end all wars.”

  I’d heard those words before… Kellee had told me how the fae thought the Nightshade would lead the unseelie and end all wars. People assumed the Nightshade had failed. But what if the Nightshade was never meant to be one person? What if it were four people around a central point? Four stars circling another at their center. Before the explosion, I’d felt Talen, Kellee, Sota, and Sirius connect to the part of me just stirring awake. “Are my men alive?”

 
“Yes, and they will come for you, but your journey is your own.” Ailish’s good blue eye glinted. A smile lifted her mouth. “You’re beginning to see. Come, allow me to show you the rest.”

  “Kesh, following a fairy into the woods is the worst idea you’ve ever had. It’s right up there with the time you tried to make me waterproof.”

  Ailish was a Wild One. I knew she had once walked the crystal palace corridors when the palace had been open to all fae, dark and light, unseelie and seelie. I knew she was as old as Faerie, and she likely had many faces, not just this scarred one. I wasn’t what I appeared to be either, and I needed answers. I needed to know if there was a way to survive this. A way we could all survive.

  I took her hand and grabbed Sota’s, adding a reassuring smile. “I have my protector right here.”

  Chapter 22

  Talen

  Kellee’s claw-tipped hand shot out of the wreckage. Wrapping my fingers around his, I heaved him from beneath the debris. He coughed, brushed dust and dirt off, and took in our surroundings.

  It looked nothing like the land I’d left behind when I’d descended into the knoll. The grass, the meadow, the trees—all gone. Flattened, churned up, and tossed aside, and just beyond the knoll opening lay the mountainous wreckage of Shinj, her back broken, her lights dark.

  “Where’s Kesh?” I asked.

  “Hopefully miles away. I put her on a horse and told her to run.” Kellee’s eyes shadowed as he absorbed the warcruiser wreckage.

  “The Hunt would have killed you,” I explained, “and gone on to find Kesh and Sota. Shinj knew that. I told her to find Kesh, but she knew it wouldn’t have been enough. One or more of us would have died here. She sacrificed herself to save us.”