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All of MacKayla’s knowledge of the world around her is s come easily to me My existence within her has been farI experienced from within the covers of the Book that once incarcerated me Three of my forty-ninth-made caste--those she calls Rhino-boys--have a wo sacrifice to partake of their flesh They play with her for momentary pleasure, beady eyes, beadyin puny caves
Much of the Unseelie King’s knowledge isinto existence from the spells he created to birth his Dark Court and know the True Narants me control over them Unfortunately there are those Unseelie recently born, such as the Highlander prince, whose names are yet unknown or I would simply summon him and slay hi’s chaic, i enee and three tusked heads swivel I corant th and speed The woman is abandoned as my children stu with fear and subservience A siered for someone to lead the chaos, death, and war I’m momentarily incensed by their limits--these frail toys that are all hich I have to play These things that aren’t real likeI’ve had an abundance of nothing
Nothing is Hell Nothing is where MacKayla is now
It’s in breaking things that you understand the them that you control them
The Unseelie tremble before me
As will the world
CHRISTIAN MACKELTAR
Arlington Abbey Despite h the deadly icefire no longer burns, I was unable to prevent the citadel’s destruction The roof has collapsed and blackened tireat beast Walls sluraves of chalky ash and tumbled stone The ancient sanctuary, built first on a shian, pagan temple, then church, is a ruin
An inch of ice coats the lawn and the now cold bones of the abbey Drawing moisture fro to fall, as if, on the day of creation, a vengeful god suspended an airborne ocean above the E frost, and soared over the fortress, extinguishing the unnatural blue-black flames
My efforts were not without price I ht, and ut spasms, somehow still flawed from my repeated disembowelment on a cliff
Beneath the fallen bastion is a labyrinthine underground city that houses a prison containing Cruce As he has not yet exploded frouess the subterranean stronghold still stands Perhaps the surviving sidhe-seers can go to ground At least the wall of the abbey directly above Cruce’s prison no longer teeters dangerously near the black hole, threatening the voracious anorowth I collapsed that wall inith an airborne kick; now it’s dust, a good distance from the event horizon
Shouts split the air as the sidhe-seers cry out the names of their dead and summon aid for those still alive
I fly over the abbey, a dark-winged shadow in a sky of forbidding thunderclouds, watching through narrowed eyes for ht in human or beast forreat wall, prepared for the next attack Though this assault has ended, another will coun
I catch a shiver of stealthy movement in the corner of my eye An Unseelie slithers beneath a es up into the path of a sidhe-seer seeking survivors, I drop like stone, slash and maim until it moves no more
When the sidhe-seer is safe, I cease ainst the wind that came wed to the ice I called, drive rounds in which I spy nothing of concern, I land in the s back and up, close to uts fros before I sleep
As I collect the corpse of a sidhe-seer who looks a mere child in death and may well have been, I stumble over an ice-covered, decapitated Unseelie, distracted by what re else The dying leave a psychic ihastly fart of one’s strongest emotions, fears, and desires Residue everywhere I’e, hear screa in the air around me I live with one foot in a world no one else can see
Wousty air, clustered around a growing pile of their fallen sisters, watchinghastily away My faded jeans, hiking boots, and gray fisher half a sheepskin, covering none of the frightening parts I see aze that calls a price if engaged, s, frosted torque, and tattoos slithering like dark snakes beneath my skin as they always do when I’, fair-haired girl Looking, no doubt, as if I’m the one that killed her My face appears more feral in a ruous together, the corpse and I Yet we fit together perfectly The only girl I’ll ever take into my arms will either already be dead or soon end up that way