Cybel swears, a sharp, discordant sound in the stunned silence of the hall, and the stranger glances his way before reaching up and drawing off his hood.
For a moment, the draugr’s memories blur over the figure before me. He’s a boy, surly and aching in his loneliness, too clever for his own good. His shrewd gaze rakes over the Hunt, lingering for a moment on Keiran and halting entirely when he reaches me. The veil of the memory rips away, and only the eyes remain. The same dark, cruel eyes set into the face of Robin Goodfellow.
A sick smile bunches his cheeks. Glamour can’t hide this from him. He knows who I am. Who I really am. I’ve been so careful to never spend time with him, since he wanders freely between Courts, but he’s heard the legends. He, like all the Winter Court, thinks I’m playing dress up. To see me here, to see me testifying, is another beast entirely. A single word of familiarity from him, and all will be lost.
“Someone’s far from home,” he says quietly.
“Robin Goodfellow,” Aage says, trying to draw his attention away from me, “you have no place here.”
“I’m just curious what’s going on,” Goodfellow pleads. I don’t trust his hands’ swift motions, the quick glances he uses to take in the hall. His cloak flares out when he moves and I catch a glint of metal at his hip. A knife, at the very least. “It seems you’ve been busy. Dreher’s an outlaw, three well-meaning huscarls are being charged with treason—”
The news has spread so quickly? Keiran creeps up beside me, his two short axes drawn, and the magick of the berserkir belt pulses with every beat of his heart. The draugr slides from my mind and begins to creep into my muscles, searching for a way to defend itself. I lower a hand to the hilt of the knife I’ve tucked against the small of my back, for once in equal agreement with its wishes. It retreats from my body when my fingers clasp the weapon, content to growl and promise pain to the fae threatening us.
Me. Threatening me.
“Enough.” Aage’s voice thunders above Goodfellow’s. He glares at the messenger. “You have no clan. You swear no allegiance. You dance between the Summer and Winter Courts, and show no heed to our people’s neutrality—”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” Goodfellow interrupts, his words tight and sharp. He reaches toward his belt. With that hint of threat, the rest of the scene snaps back into focus.
The Mainlanders’ weapons aren’t pointed toward Goodfellow. They’re pointed toward us, toward everyone in the hall who stands against the traitors. Aage’s retainers who were near the accused huscarls are now held captive, knives pressed to their throats or against the soft, easily rent flesh protecting their kidneys and livers, while Bouchard, Chayka, and Boros follow in Goodfellow’s wake like carrion birds.
Goodfellow’s lanky figure casts eerie shadows on the wall as he stares down Breoca and Aage. “Have you told them?” he asks the thegn. “Have you told them who spies for you throughout the Wylds?”
“The seidhr belongs to the gods,” Aage begins.
Goodfellow laughs and draws his knife. I know this blade. I’ve felt its edge in my throat. No, not my throat. Odhrán’s throat. I stare at it, remembering its weight in my hand, the sections of handle worn from decades of use, though I’ve never wielded it myself. They’re the ghostly impressions left by Odhrán’s shade. This is their father’s knife, the knife taken by Ingjaldi as tribute when he left home. Which means...
“Keir,” I murmur, the shades’ reminders and warnings coalescing into a flash of terrifying connection. “It’s him. It’s him—”
Time falters into broken moments of panic. The weight of my drawn short seax in hand. Goodfellow’s wry smile as he flings his stolen blade at me, slow enough for me to see it coming. Keiran yelling. The blade singing as it slips over my shoulder, never touching, never cutting. It doesn’t matter. Goodfellow’s landed the killing blow regardless. The iron’s singed through my glamour, burned it away because I was too frightened to focus on holding it up against the onslaught. I’m stripped of my helm and left naked before all the Sluagh.
“Behold, your thegn’s false prophet,” Goodfellow intones with mock solemnity. “Queen Mab’s youngest son, Prince Lugh.”
False prophet. The pieces fall into place. Goodfellow needed a flash point to start his rebellion against Aage and unmasking me is the perfect spark. Charging his huscarls for breaking their neutrality has made Aage, aligned with the Winter Court, a hypocrite. His crown, his reign, will be lost because of me. Because of the secrets he held for me.
Goodfellow reaches out and takes a sword from Bouchard. With their leader armed, the Mainlanders throw themselves forward with weapons raised, even as Keiran, Cybel, and Armel push me behind them. The Northerners rise and crash against the oncoming wave of Goodfellow’s supporters. Blood and screams and the sound of metal shrieking fill the hall as weapons slide against each other.
Kill him, the shades scream. The draugr’s rage cannot be denied. It’s fighting to reach Goodfellow, to destroy him, and as it claims me, I find him in the midst of the battle’s confusion and see his path.
“Protect the thegn!” I cry to the Hunt, forcing the words out past the draugr’s hold.
* * *
They don’t hear me. I cross toward the throne, but it’s too late. The distraction works perfectly. A flick of Goodfellow’s wrist sends a thorned vine whipping up through the floor and toward Breoca’s face. It slashes him across the eyes, but he’s a warrior, tried and tested during Aage’s rise to power. He keeps his sword, giving a half swing to clear space as he steps to the last place his thegn stood. He doesn’t fall, so Goodfellow sends more vines at him. They wrap around his arms and neck, digging their thorns deep, killing him slowly. With the threat of Breoca’s strength removed, Goodfellow darts forward toward Aage.
The Sluagh thegn stands unarmed. Goodfellow’s sword flies toward him, but Aage reaches out in a final effort to withhold death. Flesh can’t stop an iron blade, even in a moment of desperation. The sword slices into his hands as it slides farther, deeper, pierci
ng Aage through his heart. He holds Goodfellow’s gaze, even when the blade is ripped free. He collapses beside the still twitching Breoca, the two greatest Sluagh warriors fallen before their people realize it. Goodfellow reaches down to remove Aage’s crown. He settles it on his brow as he straightens, his bloody work finished.
The shadow man is before me, and the jagged pieces of the shades left behind in my mind scream as the world crashes down. My head splits with the draugr’s roar of challenge and my heart weeps. I let the draugr unleash its rage, guiding its focus with one plea: stop him.
Keiran
Blood spatters the floor and the walls and leaves fighters slipping in puddles of gore. The hall’s wooden floor is hidden beneath piles of rent fabric, broken flesh, and bright bone. Swords lay scattered among the corpses. The low moans of the dying underscore the cacophony of the fighting. I’ve abandoned my short axes, given them up for the defensive strength of my father’s axe.
The quest is lost. The war will be lost. The Sluagh have seen the truth. Our few friends will die to secure our escape. Have already died. Breoca and Aage have fallen and, gods, I swear I see the glinting eyes of great wolves staring at me from the shadows just beyond this chaos. The world’s ending and Lugh isn’t here beside me.
His battle cry pierces through the discord and the belt’s magick scratches over my skin in a panicked response to Lugh’s fury. I whip my head toward the sound in time to watch him attack Goodfellow. Except, this isn’t Lugh. His movements are too rough. His graceful attacks and precise footwork are replaced with wild swings and lurching attempts to close the distance between him and Goodfellow. Everything about this fight is wrong. Short seax against short sword. Incoherent rage against dispassionate precision. Pain against triumph. He can’t win fighting this way.