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Chapter Seven

We swept into the great rooo there had been reporters, ca up, levitating chairs and tables, andthe trash of paper and plastic roll like small tumbleweeds They looked up at us, eyes wide I had a htly that I could not breathe Would they fight us, as Gran had? But none of the at us Then ere past them, and the far door that had looked too sh The faerieitself to our use

But beyond the doors was a solid wall of roses and thorns Thorns like daggers pointed at us, roses bloomed and filled the hallith sweet perfume It was a lovely way to defend, so terribly Seelie

I thought ere stopped, but the wall to the right widened, with a sound like rock crying The sithen widened the hallway, not in inches, but in horse lengths, so that the lovely and deadly vines collapsed inward, like any cli rose will do when its support is cut That heavysilence after the rock had stopped uards underneath the painful blanket

Fire blossoe, and the heat reached us, but it was like the winter cold I could feel it, but it did notinto empty air, as if the fire itself turned away rather than hit us

We swept through rooue h&039;s arms, when he and the nobles who had wanted &039;s bedchamber Then I&039;d had time to see it all, admire the cold beauty of it, and think that it wasn&039;t a place for nature deities No matter how beautiful, the trees and flowers inside our sithens should not be foruards appeared ahead of us in the hallway The last time I&039;d seen them, they&039;d been dressed in modern business suits to s that Taranis had insisted on but that Andais never had was uniforms The tunics and trousers were every color of the rainboith more modern colors added in, but the tabards that covered theant cloth sandwich boards bore a stylized flalittered around the edge of everything Once Taranis had been worshipped by burning people alive Not often, but so that Taranis chose the flaan shooting arrows, but the shafts turned away, as if so on the walls long before they reached us I saw the fear on soain that fierce joy hit ed his horse up beside h The hounds boiled at our feet, the riderless horses sees that pushed and writhed at the tail of our train surged forward I felt the ceiling go away, as if there were sky above us now Sky enough for the sluagh&039;s shining whiteness to rise above us like a htmares

Souards ran, their nerves broken Two fell to their knees, their minds broken The rest fired their hands of power Silver sparkles fell far short of us A bolt of yellow energy rolled back upon itself, like the fire before it, as if the ic simply would not touch us Colors, shapes, illusion, reality - they threw it all at us These were the great warriors of the Seelie Court, and they fought, but nothing could touch us Nothing could even slow our run

We leaped over them as if they were a fence One of theic He sliced upward at the leg of a hound and got blood Cold iron can harm all in faerie

The wounded hound dropped away froht have stopped, but Sholto urged his horse forward and ed to yet another color, pink with veins of gold, we had a third rider with us The guard who had wounded the dog was now astride the horse It had changed slightly, and its eyes were filled with yellow shine, its hooves edged in gold Its eyes were no less yellow than its rider&039;s hair The gold of its hooves echoed in the gold of the Seelie&039;s eyes Dacey, I thought his naold and silk bridle on it now, and a bit between its teeth The guard was forced to join us for the cried the horse for hiic is like water; it seeks a shape to take

Twothat could harm us They joined the hunt One horse turned pale colors under its white skin, as if pastel rainbows reen, with vines laced around it as its bridle The vines an to cover the rider on its back in a suit of living green Turloch had the pale horse, and Yolland the green

I&039;d thought to find my cousin in her room, or in a back place where the poor nobles are put, those with no political power, or favor of the king But the hounds led us to the one anywhere else, the guards would have given up by now, but because ent for the throne roouards thought ere here for Taranis They , but they were oath bound to protect him When faced by the wild hunt you don&039;t want to be an oathbreaker You can go fro fresh prey if you are not careful So I think they did not truly fight for the king, but for the about that Perhaps they saw in their king things I had never seen Things worth fighting and dying for Perhaps

But it wasn&039;t the guard&039;s abilities that stopped the hunt in the great room just outside the throne room doors It was the room itself Just as there was an antechamber in the Unseelie Court that held last-ditch defenses, so was there one here in the Seelie Court The Unseelie had their living roses and thorns that would drag any unwanted visitors to their bloody death It was a ic very similar to the wall of thorns that had tried to stop us earlier The led, though both sides would deny it

What did the Seelie have in their cha that spilled into a distant sparkle of sky, like a piece of daylight forever stored in the liround, but there were gliht in the tree&039;s upper lis you see from the corners of your eyes If you look directly at them, they aren&039;t there, but yet you see them The sky was like that, alh that it was quite a feat to walk around it to get to the huge jeweled doors of the throne room But it was just a tree, so what reat chamber at a full run, the other riders at our backs, our hounds howling, the boil of not-creatures at the end of it all pushing at us like fuel, or will It wanted to be used, the stuff that followed in our wake

Sunlight flared down froht spilled over us For a second I thought it would burn as Taranis&039;s hand of power could, as ht It was real sunlight The heat of a su to burst into life and cover us with that life-giving waralloped over green grass with tall su that re its branches above the meadow

Sholto yelled, "Ride for the oak It&039;s real The rest isn&039;t"

He was so certain, so utterly certain, that it left no room for doubts in my mind I kicked my mare forward, and rode at Sholto&039;s shoulder The riders in back of us came with us, with no doubts voiced I wasn&039;t certain whether they truly had no doubts, or whether they simply had no choice but to follow the huntsmen In that moment, I did not care, only that we pushed forward, and Sholto knew the way

His horse hit the far side of the oak, and it was as if a curtain peeled back One breath we rode in a summer meadow, the next we clattered on stone, and were before the jeweled doors

Sholto&039;s ed stallion reared in front of the doors, as if he could not pass Powerful ic indeed to stop the hunt I&039;d known that the doors were old, but I hadn&039;t realized that they were one of the ancient relics brought here from the old country These doors had stood before the throne room of the Seelie Court whenhouses out of anied my mare forward slowly The hounds whined and scratched at the door, high, eager sounds that sounded almost too puppyish to come from the thick throats of the white mastiffs Our prey ithin

I smelled roses, and I whispered, "What would you have of e I si I turned the horse so ere sideways to the huge doors I pressedblood of randmother I felt the pulse of the doors, almost a heartbeat The truly ancient objects could have that, a seic, so powerful the powers that forged them It meant that certain objects had opinions, could make choices, all on their own; as soht in the hands of their choosing, so other things will listen to reason

I pressed the blood against the door, reached for that pulse of almost life, and spoke "By the blood of my kinswoman, by the death of the only mother I ever truly had, I call kin slayer on Cair We are the wild hunt Taste the blood of my loss, and let us pass"

The doors h, if wood and an to open, revealing a slice of the glittering rooht

There was a confusion of colors: yellows, reds, and oranges, and over it all was gold Gold like theThe air itself was full of sparkles, as if gold dust were permanently suspended in the air, so that the very air you breathed was forold spilled around us, e so that it rained around us, trailed behind us, ic so that we appeared in the old

There was a moment when I saw the Golden Court spilled out before us A olden and jeweled throne, with all hisof sunset colors and near-sunlike brilliance His court spilled to either side in its standing lines, and the sarden of brilliant flowers forold and silver and jewels His people had hair in every color of the rainbow, their clothes chosen to co He liked the color of jewels and fire, so as Andais&039;s court looked as if it were always ready for a funeral, Taranis&039;s court looked like a bright version of hell

I had a mouards poured around the throne There were cries of, "He is forsworn! To the King! To the King!" Solorious court poured toward the throne and prepared to aid the guards, but soht would be the center of the fight

I gli head and shoulders above most of the people as they fled He was like a tree in theat hiod, I realized that I had randfather&039;s hair I saw him so seldoic flared around us in a deadly rainbow of color, fire, ice, and stor, for whom else would I have been able to call down the wild hunt upon? So ain that call to be at the head of the hunt forever So siht and find our prey So ripped h I turned to see Sholto, his face serious, his yellow and gold eyes searching ht, but the fact that he knew to keep bringing me back from the brink told me that he&039;d had his own temptations at the head of the hunt You can best protect others from temptation if you are, yourself, teical stor Small twisters whirled around the room, formed when powers of heat hit powers of cold There were screaic, I could see people running So, others fled to save themselves, and still others huddled near the walls and under the heavy tables We watched it all through the frosted "glass" of the s never hesitated, were never distracted by the spells of others They had but one purpose, one prey The hail of spells, and the storuards had finally realized that we had no interest in the throne We s shouldered their way under the tables, and spilled around a figure that was huddled against the wall

I felt my mare&039;s ht forward and get a better grip on her mane before she leaped the wide table in one powerful jureen sparks, little licks of green and red flalow in her eyes becaes of her eye sockets

The dogs had trapped ainst the stone wall She pressed that tall, thin sidhe fraive way and she would be able to escape that way Her orange dress was very bright against the white ht Again, that spurt of rage and deeply satisfying vengeance came to me Her face was lovely and pale, and if she had only had a nose and enough skin to cover her mouth with lips, she&039;d have been as attractive as any in court There had been a tiht Cair truly beautiful, because I had not seen what she lacked as a liness I loved Gran&039;s face, so her face combined with the face of a sidhe, ere all so lovely, well, Cair could be nothing but beautiful to me But she had not felt that way, and she had let , with srew older that the reason was that she would have traded her tall, lithe body forshort and curved was a crime, but my face with its more-sidhe features hat she wanted As a child, I had siainst the wall, the brown eyes of our grandmother in her face, with its so-similar bone structure, and I wanted her to be afraid I wanted her to knohat she&039;d done and regret it, then I wanted her to die in terror Was that petty? Did I care? No, I did not

Cair looked up at randmother&039;s eyes - eyes filled with terror, and behind the fear, knowledge She knee were here

I urgedpack of hounds I reached out to her with the dried blood on e white and red dogs moved closer The threat was there in the bass rus that wereflesh

She closed her eyes, and I leaned forward,for that perfect white cheek My hand touched her, gently She winced as if I&039;d struck her Oneto cake on my skin, the next it et and fresh I left a criainst her perfect bone structure All the blood on ain The old wives&039; tale that a murder victim will bleed afresh if its murderer lays hands on it is based on truth

I held my bloody hand up so the sidhe could see it, and cried out, "Kin slayer I name her By the blood of her victim, she is accused"

It was e of the dogs, and held her white hands out to me "Niece, Meredith, I ahter What kin did she slay to bring you here like this?"

I turned to look at her, so lovely She was my mother&039;s twin, but they weren&039;t identical Eluned was just a little old from head to toe Her red hair like ainst her dress Her eyes were the many-petaled eyes of Taranis, except that led I stared into those eyes and had a h me from storeen - Taranis&039;s eyes above me, as if in a dream, but I kneasn&039;t a dreahtly this time "Meredith"

I shook my head at him, then held my bloody hand out toward rand that our mother is dead?"

"She died in my arms"

"But how?"

I pointed at my cousin "She used a spell to ive her Cair&039;s hand of power She forced Gran to attack us with fire My Darkness is still in the hospital with injuries that Gran gave him with a hand of power she never owned"

"You lie," rowled

"If I lied I could not have called the hunt, and pronounced you kin slayer The hunt will not cohteous"

"The blood of her victim marks her," Sholto said

Aunt Eluned drew herself up to her full sidhe height and said, "You have no voice here, Shadon"

"I ahty and arrogant as her own

"King of nightht play in his hair, as if laughter could be yellow light to spill in the whiteness of his hair "Let er that has passed heat and becoer is about hate

I didn&039;t think he hated my aunt specifically, but all the sidhe who had ever treated hio a sidhe woman had lured him to a bit of tie-me-up sex But instead of sex, sidhe warriors had come and cut off his tentacles, skinned all the extra bits away The woman had told Sholto that when he healed, and was free of taint, she ed slightly, felt angrier It was my turn to reach out and warn him I&039;d always known that to be drafted to ride in the hunt couldit could also trap the huntsman The hunt wanted a permanent huntsman, or huntswo eive it the key to your soul I&039;d felt it, and now I saw Sholto begin to be incautious

I gripped his arm until he looked at ht and fresh on Cair&039;s face left no mark on his arm I stared into his eyes until I saw hier, but with that wisdoh keep their independence when doentler version that I had only seen since he found out that he was to be a father "Shall I show them that they did not unman me?"

I knehat he meant I smiled back, and nodded The s to do with the hunt&039;s purpose A moment of hope, of shared intimacy, of friendship as well as love

He&039;d hter to horrify Noould reveal himself to prove that the nobles who had hurt him had failed to mutilate him He hole More than whole, he was perfect

One moment it was a tattoo that decorated his stoht and color played on the pale skin, gold and pale pink Shades of pastel light shone andparts They waved like soraceful sea creature, moved by some warm tropical current When last he&039;d come to this court, he&039;d been ashamed of this part of himself Noas not, and it showed

There were screah a little pale, said, "You are a nightmare yourself, Shadon"

Yolland of the black hair and vine-covered horse said, "She seeks to distract you frouilt"

My aunt looked at him and said, in a shocked voice, "Yolland, how can you help the and land, but the hunt has s differently I know that Cair used her own grand horse and a trap Why would anyone do that? Have we become so heartless that theto you, Eluned?"

"She is my only child," she said, in a voice that was not so sure of itself

"And she has killed your only hter, as still pressed against the wall in a circle of the white mastiffs, with our horses at the front of the circle

"Why, Cair?" Not "how could you?" but simply "why?"

Cair&039;s face showed a different kind of fear now It wasn&039;t fear of the dogs pressing so closely She looked at her mother&039;s face, almost desperately "Mother"

"Why?" her mother said

"I have heard you deny her in this court day after day You called her a useless broho had deserted her own court"

"That was talk for the other nobles, Cair"

"You never said differently in private with me, Mother Aunt Besaba says the sa, first to live with the Unseelie, then to live aree with such words all my life You said you took h to have a choice, we stopped going"

"I visited her in private, Cair"

"Why did you not tell me?"

"Because your heart is as cold as my sister&039;s, and your ambition as hot You would have seen my care for our mother as a weakness"

"It was a weakness," she said

Eluned shook her head, a look of deep sorrow on her face She stepped back frohter She looked up at us "Did she die knowing that Cair had betrayed her?"

"Yes"

"Knowing that her own granddaughter betrayed her would have broken her heart"

"She did not have the knowledge long," I said It was cold coive her I rode with the wild hunt, and truth, harsh or kind, was the only thing I could speak this night

"I will not stand in your way, niece"

"Mother!" Cair reached out The dogs closed in around her, giving that low bass growl that see low in the brain If you heard that sound, you knew that it was bad

Cair yelled again "Mother, please!"

Eluned yelled back, "She was hter"

Eluned hter" She walked away, and she did not look back The nobles who had clustered by the door moved apart to let her pass She did not stop until the far jeweled doors closed behind her She would not fight us for her daughter&039;s life, but she would not watch us take it either I could not blame her

Cair looked around frantically "Lord Finbar, help me!" she cried

Most of the eyes in the roo was co courtiers One of those was Lord Finbar, tall and handsome with his yellow, al of power from him and the otherworldly handso to one side watching the show, but not shielding his brother Lord Finbar was planted in front of his &039;s, but no friend to my aunt or my cousin, last I knew Why would she appeal to hi, bejeweled throng that included Finbar Maybe he was no longer even in the roo horse But tonight, that did not matter What did matter hy Cair would appeal to the tall blond noble who had never been her friend

His high, sculpted-cheekboned face was set in arrogant lines, as cold as any I&039;d seen It made me think of my lost Frost, when he was either at his most afraid, or ance

Cair called out to hiain, more frantically "Lord Finbar, you proed The killing of her own matriarch is proof of that" His voice was as cold and clear as the pale line of his cheek The words dripped surety and an arrogance bred fro, but of he hiance, and stupidity

Cair cried out, "Finbar, what are you saying? You proed," he repeated

Sholto looked atTonight I held ive us your oath that you did not promise my cousin your protection, and ill believe you She is deranged"