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Chapter Nineteen

The tattoos on our hands flared to life, not as real roses, but as glowing, pulsing works of art The sht of the crown as it curled through my hair, and I kneas crowned once more hite roses and mistletoe I did not need to look at Sholto to know that his croas in place, a an to fall like rain, but they were not the pink and lavender that they had been before White petals fell around the two of us

It slowed the riot, stoppedIt turned their faces to us, ith astonishht would end, and we could talk, then the yelling began

There were screams "Sidhe! They are sidhe!" Others screamed "Betrayed! We are betrayed!"

Doyle was atto Sholto "We need weapons"

I raised my face to the fall of white petals, felt them hit my face like soft blows I spoke to the air "We need weapons"

Sholto had the spear of bone and the dagger in his hand I stood separate froan to split open Doyle and Mistral grabbed me, pulled me back, but I wasn&039;t afraid I could feel the power of the sithen revving like the greatwidened, then stopped It was a spiral staircase as white and shining as any in the Seelie Court, leading down into the ground The banister was fors that had never been hu stopped there was no sound froh It was so quiet that the sound of the rose petals hitting the sand

Then into that silence ca froure came, clothed all in white, hidden behind a cloak and robes that hadn&039;t been worn in faerie for centuries Hands as white as the cloth held a sword by its hilt I thought at first that the hands were ht skin like Sholto&039;s and ure came farther up the stairs, I saw that the hands were bones Skeletal hands held the white handle of the sword The blade hite too, though it gleaure was tall, as tall as any sidhe It looked at us with a skull for a face, hidden behind a gauzy veil Empty eye sockets stared at me It turned to Sholto, and offered the sword

He hesitated for a second, then reached for the hilt He brushed the skeletal hands, but did not see puddle of petals, the long trailing gown like so dress She, for it was she, stood to one side and waited

The next figure looked like a duplicate of the first: all white, all bone, that gauzy veil in front of the skull face This one offered a woven white belt and scabbard Sholto took the the sword

A third skeletal figure came, but this one held a shield, as white as the sword The shield was carved with figures of skeletons and tentacled beasts If I hadn&039;t seen the sluagh in their wildest forreat sea beasts, but I knew better now

The skeleton bride offered the shield to Sholto He took it, and once it was on his arm, the sithen roared around us It was a sound, not just inside the head for reat beast

I would have thought that the parade of weapons was over, but I could see ures on the stairs The curve kepthow ure came to me She held a pale sword, not white, but almost flesh-colored in its hilt I reached for it, but Doyle stopped me with a hand on my arm "Touch it only with the hand that contains the hand of flesh, Meredith It is the blade Aben-dul Anyone who touches it who does not wield the hand of flesh will be consumed in the same way the hand of flesh destroys"

My pulse was suddenly so hard in my throat that it hurt to breathe past it The hand of flesh was by far ic I could turn soether into one screa mass But the sidhe do not die fro with ht hand, and it was the hand of flesh for erous soood to know that the same power that will help you will also trap you, but power is often like that, a two-edged sword

I took the weapon, and a collective gasp went up froh They had knohat it was too, but they had shouted no warning The hilt that had been plain htly to hold it It felt alive I welded together Then it was suddenly carved with ies of what the sword could do In that moment, I knew that I could cut someone with it, as a normal sword, but I also knew that with it in my hand I could also project the hand of flesh over a distance in battle It was the only object that I&039;d ever heard of in legend that was formed to be the perfectenough ago that it wasn&039;t even in any of the stories

How did I know about it? My father had made certain that I memorized the list of lost objects of power It was a litany of e had lost as a people, but now I realized that it was also a list of e could recover

The next figure held a spear that sparkled silver and white, al jewel There were several spears of legend, and it wasn&039;t until she moved around us and offered it to Mistral that I was certain of its na It had never been Mistral&039;s spear Once it had belonged to Taranis, the Thunderer, before he tried to be too human, and turned from what he washand around the spear&039;s shaft It could only be wielded by a stor otten that about the old weapons Most of them had only one hand that could wield them safely To all others, they were destruction