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Chapter Forty-Five

We reappeared in the winter field hand in hand We&039;d dressed ourselves, and tied our weapons back on, and left that place of peace and ic, to step back into the aftermath of battle No, worse than battle: boone horribly wrong

There were moans from the Red Caps, and for the But I knehat to do I knew it as surely as you know your name, or your favorite color I simply knew, because the air still slow of the moon and sun

We stood in the center of the wounded, and we pushed our ic outward; as the queen had pushed darkness, we pushed blood and flesh Blood to wash the metal bits from their bodies There were cries of pain, clouds of blood in the dimness Flesh to heal the wounds Then the cries stopped, and the Red Caps got to their feet, a little shaky perhaps, but healed and whole They stood to a man, and turned to us

I held Holly and Ash&039;s hands upward in mine I called out, "The hand of blood!" and Holly stepped forth, his hand held high, his skin and hair and eyes shining with the healing that we had done

"The hand of flesh!" and Ash stepped away fro

I held my hands up to the sky and said, "I hold the hands of flesh and blood, and now I can athered around us, then dropped to their knees, their faces covered in blood froave them their names I went to Jonty, and touched his face The moment I touched him, his cap ran with blood as if I&039;d dumped a bucket over his head The other Red Caps clustered around , and where they touched, they bled Then one of therabbed Holly&039;s wrist Holly snarled at hi his blade because blood was pouring down the Red Cap&039;s face

Holly stared over his shoulder at me "I truly have the hand of blood" He made it almost a question

"Yes," I said, and nodded in case he was too far away to hear my voice

A look of wonder crossed his face, and he turned back to the Red Cap at his feet and touched hiently with his free hand The blood flowed faster, and the Red Caps began to cluster around hirab Ash, but they did not bleed faster "The hand of flesh," Ash said, and it wasn&039;t a question

I nodded

The Red Caps clustered around Holly and me, but Ash didn&039;t seem to mind He just stared at his hand, as if he could feel which one held the power

Doyle cah s mountains He went to his knees in front ofhis hands in mine I raised hi at me in a way that I&039;d never seen before "What&039;s wrong?" I asked

"Look at yourself," he said, his voice soft

I didn&039;t understand what he e of , but the gloas so faint that I hadn&039;t noticed it

One of the Red Caps unsheathed his great sword, and held it up for Doyle He took it, and held the flat of the blade so I could seeblack and silver ona word I turned ht the dew, and outlined the spiderweb that formed the crown

"Oh, ht and Shadows," he said

I stared at him "But that&039;s the crown of the Unseelie Court"

"Yes," he said

"And it&039;s e of the field He held a spear in his hand The runes glowed across the field, and I kneas the spear known only as Shrieker The queen had indeed opened the weapons vault to her son Shrieker had once been able to slay ar it made in the air when it was thrown

I saw a flash of white on the edge of the field Cel&039;s ar start to cover us all with its deadly screaraceful arc, and put itself in the way of the spear Cel couldn&039;t stop the blow, so the spear buried itself in the white stag&039;s side, and was jerked fro tried to run

Doyle and the rest were running, closing on Cel I had eyes only for the stag as it collapsed to its knees The Red Caps and the brothers ran for the fight, except for Jonty He scooped ht when he&039;d run across the fields to get me to a different battle in tiet et me to Frost&039;s side before he breathed his last

Chapter Forty-Six

The fight was between us and the dying stag As always, Cel was between round My body was splattered with the waric He looked carved of blood fro ht, but I realized that the reason the fight was taking so long was that they were trying not to kill Cel He wanted them dead, and even as I watched he opened a wound in Galen&039;s arm that sprayed blood, and made him retreat

There was blood on Rhys&039;s face and a wound in Mistral&039;s side that he was favoring, which meant he was hurt Cel was no match for the to kill thee Holly and Ash were actually not fighting, because a goblin does not fight except to kill It raised again the idea that the Red Caps had once been their own kingdo backward just in time to avoid a sword thrust He had not drawn his sword I think he didn&039;t trust what he would do to Cel with a blade in his hand It had been ingrained in them for centuries that they were not allowed to harm Cel, no matter what he did The queen would have killed theer queen

I yelled, "Kill hiot a cut across his chest that made him stumble Cel came in for the kill, and only Doyle&039;s sword kept the blow fro He&039;d drawn his sword at last He drove Cel back hirring sork so that his blade moved too fast to folloith the eye, like the blade of so No one was that fast, no one but Doyle

Cel actually kept the blade at bay, his oork an answering blur In that moment, I saw for the first time that Cel wasn&039;t just a mamma&039;s boy There was a warrior in all that spoiled prince Few could have withstood Doyle, even for a few ress, but he kept the blade froone utterly silent; there was nothing but the ring of blade on blade, and the grunts of effort from Cel Doyle worked in silence, except for the slither of his feet on the ground as heCel&039;s

It was too fast for oddess of war, and she saw more She yelled out across the cold air, "Darkness, please, spare hi e, but suddenly his blade was spinning through the air, and Doyle&039;s blade was at his throat, as he lay on the ground, panting up at the otherHe was sance I&039;d seen hiain The Queen of Air and Darkness had that power

Doyle stood with Black Madness pressed to Cel&039;s throat, but did not drive it hoain" was all I thought

I looked at Mistral on his knees, clutching his side, leaning on his shining spear, his sword still naked in his hand Galen was down to one useable are plain on his usually s face Rhys&039;s face bled freely, and I realized that Cel had tried to cut out his only good eye He had missed, but the fact that he&039;d tried ht seriously He had wanted to hurt us, not necessarily kill us He had wanted to ht after I called for Cel&039;s death That Cel could wound them so quickly said just how much I&039;d underestilowed like a dark halo as I e of the field with his sluagh, and I yelled out, "Why did you not join the fight?"

"The queen forbade it," he called back

I stared across the field at Andais She wasn&039;t quite to us I called out, "Andais, do you see the crown upon hed and seemed to touch everyone on the field

"What crown is it?"

Her hand tightened on the po true death to anyone "It is the Crown of Moonlight and Shadows It was once my crown" There was bitterness to that last

"Now it&039;s mine"

"So it seems," she said