Page 20 (1/2)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I orderedCel was a prince of faerie He was heir to a throne He had diplomatic immunity They shouldn&039;t have taken ether I had saved their lives My orders through their sergeant had kept us alive and unharmed We were a unit, and as a unit they fired on my order

I watched the nobles&039; bodies jerk and dance to the explosion of the bullets The noise was deafening They ounded in a sort of silence, because the guns were so loud, and see to do with the movement at the other end of the barrel It was as if we fired, but they fell because of so I had to do so before they unleashed their hands of power on us all

Blood leaked black in the h blood I needed more, so much more For the first time I felt no dread of my power, no pain at the call of it, just a fierceness that was almost joy That fierceness poured over my skin in a wash of heat It hit my left hand and poured out ?"

I had no time to explain I said, "The hand of blood" I pointed that hand, palm out, toward our enemies I should have worried that I would hit Doyle, but in that moment I knew, simply knew, that I could do it I could control it It was mine, this power, it was me

Blood fountained in black sheets from their wounds They screamed, then Cel raised his hand I knehat he , I stepped out frorabbed for me to pull me back behind the shield of their bodies, but then Cel&039;s hand of old blood hit us all, and Dawson&039;s hand fell away There were yells behind me, but I had no time to look

I screamed "Mine!" There was pain I could feel the nails in ain; the knife wound I&039;d taken in a duel; claw h from an old attack It hurt, and I bled for him, but he could only make the wound as bad as it had been, and I had never had a blood injury that was near fatal

"What did you do?" Dawson asked "One , noe&039;re not"

I had no space in ht not kill us, but there were others at his side who could It was a race now to see if I could bleed them to death faster than they could recover theeysered fro under my power, their wounds like a doorway thatliquid The sound of it was like rain on the grass and trees around thean to turn black with blood and gore They were screa now, but what they screamed was "Mercy!" They called for mercy, but as I watched Doyle lay motionless at their feet, covered in black blood, I discovered that I had no ive theht caainst the Unseelie?" But even Cel wasn&039;t supposed to be ht the United States Army I hadn&039;t foreseen this, hadn&039;t dreaht didn&039;taroundacross the yards of the frosted grass at my cousin&039;s mad eyes His helmet left his face bare save for a crosspiece down the line of his nose His eyes burned with the color of his ic He had called all his power, and I realized that it wasn&039;t enough It had never been enough

The wind picked up the long blackness of his hair where it spilled free around his armor He&039;d alorn it loose in battle Too vain to hide his beauty, too bad a warrior to be willing to hide the hair that h court Unseelie He would never braid it or put it back as Doyle did

Cel eak, evil- back to LA but I could not leave my people to him I could not leave faerie in his inadequate hands

I whispered onto the wind, "Bleed for ic, and where it an to form into a ind A tornado formed of ice and blood and power Faerie was the land, the land was faerie, and I had been crowned its queen It rose to my word, my power, and my desire

The nobles around him who could move, ran Those who could crawl did so They picked up their wounded and fled Cel screamed at them, "Come back, cowards!"

His concentration had slipped away froic

Cel lashed out at his followers Soht low by ancient wounds reopened by the

A wave of blackness ht ht was moonless, and darker than dark I knew, before shein the way of my cold wind and blood

Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, stood in front of her son, as she had always stood in front of him She wore her black armor, carried her raven blade Her cloak spilled out behind her, and it was darkness itself spun into cloth, and more She held darkness around her, and I felt her power of air push back at my own

The twister I had conjured with faerie&039;s help stoppedforward It did not die or fade, but it stopped, as if its twisting front had hit an invisible wall

I pushed at that wall, willed my power to move forward, and for a moment the wall softened I felt the ind move forward; then it was as if the air was draay froht She pulled the air fros

Lieutenant Dawson barked orders and the soldiers for at her Would I have fired on my queen? I had aDarkness poured over us, and ere blind The next moment the air was heavy, so heavy We could not breathe We had no air even to call for help I collapsed to ainst me, and I knew it had to be Dawson, but I could not see hioddess of battle, and ould die at her feet

Chapter Forty

I was lost in the dark Her blackness had taken the sky Only two things reround underdark I no longer knew right froround let ainst me in the blackness A hand found mine, a hand to hold while we died

The frost crunched underto the warainstFrost He had let faerie take hiht I loved him less than Doyle It broke my heart to think that he would never know that I had loved him too

I tried to say his na to thefrost and the huround

I regretted the babies inside ht, "I&039;m sorry I&039;m so sorry I couldn&039;t save you" But part of me was content to die If Doyle and Frost were both lost to me, then death was not the worst fate In that , because without the wash over aveto ht me back to myself I could have died alone, but if I died there was no one left to save them, my men, my soldiers I could not leave the I could do to save theain, it was duty But duty is its own kind of love; I would fight for the The babes inside me, without their fathers to help raise the to ht to steal them How dare she, immortal that she was, take their few years away

I prayed, "Goddess, help ht for theht the dark and the very air made too heavy to breathe, but I prayed all the same, because when all else is lost, there is always prayer

At first, I thought nothing had changed, then I realized that the grass under ers flexed, as if thethat ly cold, like breathing in the heart of winter when the air is so cold it burns going down Then I realized that I was breathing a coid air The hand in , "I can breathe," or si to draw a full breath all this time

I whispered, "Thank you, Goddess"

I tried to lift ot ain Sounds in the dark let me know that I wasn&039;t the only one who had discovered how narrow our line of air was, but it was there We could breathe Andais could not crush our lungs She would have to come into the dark and find us if she wanted us dead

The frost thickened undersnow The air was so cold that each breath hurt, as if ice were stabbing me Then the frost thickened more, and moved under my hand Moved? Frost didn&039;tout of the very ground I kept o up and up, untilI stroked ely cold side, and found the curved haunches of so to find a hoof that I thought I understood The white stag had for Frost was here, beside , still not my love, but it was still him in there somewhere I stroked his side, felt hi&039;s head had to be far above mine, and if he could breathe, so could I I rose slowly to &039;s side and the other in the hand that still clung to ot to their knees

It was Orlando, next to me, who said, "I can still breathe"

I didn&039;t answer I was afraid to talk, as if , make it run like the aniainst htly, but I was afraid that it would climb to its feet and run Howme, but did he understand, or had the Goddess just sent the stag to help us?

I whispered, "Oh, Frost, please, please hearthat it didn&039;t like had touched it, and it got to its feet My hand was just on its leg as I struggled tocoat, with no hand to help rip on either war because it was the closest I&039;d been to Frost since he had vanished, and Orlando&039;s hand because it had been that touch that had ht A human hand that hadas her people are in danger You fight, you fight even if your heart is broken, because it&039;s not just about your happiness anymore It&039;s about theirs, too

I stumbled on the hehted etting ready to bolt I kneas a stag, and I kneasn&039;t really in there, but this was the closest I had come to him, and I wanted him to stay This curve of fur and waran to walk I kept ing, and thought that Orlando had so pranced nervously, and I felt the presence of so, and held hands like children, as it led us forward in the dark

It was Sergeant Daho said, "Weapons off Safe When we can see again, fire Don&039;t give her a chance to use her ain"

Andais was queen and my aunt My father had refused to kill her and take her throne That bit of mercy had probably cost him his life, because once the rebels offer you a throne, even if you don&039;t take it, there are those who fear that you will He had loved his sister, and even his nephew I realized in that moment that I did not They had both made certain that there was no love between us Some would say I had a duty to my queen, but my duty was to thewho led us forward, and as left of my Frost My duty was to the children inside me, and anyone ould steal the War on the ground, in the middle of a battle, is not When someone shoots at you, they are your enemy, and you shoot back When someone tries to kill you, they are your enemy, and you try to kill the to kill us, even knowing I held the grandchildren of her brother inside me In that moment I had only one duty, for all of us to survive

If she used her ht not be a second miracle to save us Goddess helps those who help themselves We were armed with automatic weapons; we&039;d help ourselves

I felt the soldiers around uns Orlando squeezed my hand one last ti ready to kill my queen Would she still be where we&039;d left her? "The queen ave orders for the men to cover a circle around us, because there was no cover save the darkness that held us Once free of that, ould be naked to the view of all

We stepped into the h to htness when the first gunshots exploded aroundjerked so violently that for a ht he had been hit Then he bounded away, a blur of white, streaking away frouns, the violence

I yelled his name I could not help it "Frost!" But there was no one inside that body to answer the sound of hue, and I was alone again

Dawson yelled beside me, "Field of fire, the black area Suppressive bursts with rifle, squad weapons, givebehind it"

I turned and looked at the battlefield I turned and looked at my aunt and my cousin and the nobles fro to rule, and I cared

Andais had called darkness, like a mist to hide herself and Cel and the other nobles Dawson and the rest were firing into it If they were still there, the bullets would find them, but there was no way to tell what lay in the dark Had she fled?

I looked behind us, and found that thethe back of the circle were doing just that They were letting the others fire into the dark, but they watched to see whether the darkness was a trick, whether our ene to sneak up behind us