Far on the right, the pale flash of Seelie armor marks the tight circle of Sláine’s troops. My brother sends up wall after wall of earth, which shatter as iron undoes his glamour’s work.
Vines and briars sprout and lash out through the air as Seb tries to secure fighting distance around them. But the Mainland force is too large. They fling themselves into the thorns, weighing down the conjured vines with their dead before scrambling up and over, claiming the right flank through sheer numbers alone.
There, in the center of the battle, Smith acts as the iron breaker, wielding the ley line to cut a swath of space through the bulk of Goodfellow’s forces. I can’t see Roark, can only see the sudden explosions of ice he hurls to protect Smith. Mother’s daggers sparkle and her glamour rips at the Mainland Sluagh, carving them apart in an effort to open a path to Goodfellow for the redcaps behind her.
And then the Sluagh surge forward. They fling themselves at Smith and he vanishes under a huddle of bodies. His scream cuts loud and clear through the furious battle noise. The ley line explodes out, burning all in its path to ash before collapsing in a golden fall of smoldering snow.
Smith falls. Mother staggers. Goodfellow spurs his horse forward, Sluagh surrounding him, eager to make the kill for their false thegn.
Mother’s guard is there in a moment, falling as they defend her retreat to the safety of the sídhe. A pair of redcaps drag Smith from the fray, hacking their way out of the mess to carry him in Mother’s wake. Goodfellow rides harder, faster toward them, prepared to claim his final prize as he mows down the soldiers trying to slow his progress.
Roark, a dark spot in the midst of the fight, plants himself in the center of Goodfellow’s path. His rapier lifts, his hand stretches out, and a wall of ice spears jut out of the ground. Goodfellow can’t turn his horse away fast enough. It impales itself on the spears and sends Goodfellow flying. He manages to roll when he hits the ground, barely avoiding Roark’s blade.
I’m too far away. Too far to help. Too far to make sense of what I’m seeing. Roark attacks with blade and glamour, making every effort to stall Goodfellow while avoiding his iron sword and the conjured vines Goodfellow tries to trip him with. After narrowly avoiding a vicious, frozen wave, Goodfellow offers a split-second opening. Roark seizes it and freezes his feet in place. He moves in for the killing blow, and Goodfellow uses his stolen magick in a furious burst. The ice shatters, thorned vines tangle around Roark, unable to get through his armor, but fully capable of stealing away his rapier and hurling him to the ground near the retreating redcaps. He hits hard. Too hard. His head snaps back against the ground and I stop breathing when he doesn’t rise.
Movement at my left. Keiran’s there, broken from the cover of the trees, returned to the Hunt in my moment of need while his huscarls lead our hundreds of troops in a flowing stream down the hillside and onto the field. They cut off Goodfellow’s rear escape. With that last flank secured, I ride toward Roark, knowing Keiran will catch up to us.
Goodfellow doesn’t see the shift in the battle. He strides forward, sword raised, Roark’s limp body in his sights. I urge Liath on and the Hunt thunders at my back. Keiran joins us, hefting his father’s axe as our horses race down the gentle hillside toward the widening circle of space around Goodfellow.
Roark struggles to rise. The glistening edge of Goodfellow’s sword falls.
Too late. We’re too late.
Mother breaks free from her redcap guard and throws herself at Goodfellow. He barely parries her first strike, his sword’s iron splintering her ice dagger as the glamour is destroyed. She spins away, unsheathing her only remaining sword. The bitter wind she conjures forces Goodfellow to turn his head to protect his eyes. An opening. The fingers of her free hand spread wide, and her magick bursts forth in an unstoppable wall of ice. He avoids it with a desperate thicket of vines, cushioning the impact and breaking the initial surge of the attack.
We’re so close now. Keiran pushes Dubh ahead of me, swinging his axe in a wide arc to keep the path clear, his humanity leading us deeper and deeper through the enemy’s ranks. I lose sight of Mother; I only catch glimpses of ice or vines and feel the buffeting forces of her glamour raging against Goodfellow’s magick. The line of Mainland Sluagh ahead of us shifts, twisting to avoid Keiran’s blows, and my family is there, so close.
Roark staggers up to his feet, bleeding, trying to support his weight, and failing. Seb and Sláine must have regained their flank, because decaying corpses lie in Sláine’s wake, along with bodies impaled on thorns like a grisly testament to the Green Man’s power. My oldest brother’s nearly fought to Roark’s side. Fear colors his rasped calls. We slow our approach, searching for a way to jump into the fray, but Mother and Goodfellow’s clash is too violent.
Mother darts in and forces Goodfellow away from my brothers. Her graceful, powerful swings remind me why fae like Cybel revere her. She’s unstoppable, a force of nature, a mother determined to protect her children no matter the cost.
Despite the forced retreat, Goodfellow keeps taunting her. His words ring out against the collision of their swords. “A failed Court. Failed sons. A failed rule. I spent centuries stealing power from you and Oberon, using your hatred and distrust of each other to take my own throne. You made me the king I am—”
“You are no king,” Mother spits. She ducks as she attacks again, scoops a handful of snow, and uses her glamour to hurtle it into Goodfellow’s face. Her magick sharpens the flakes so they cut against his skin, leaving him bleeding from a thousand delicate scratches.
Instead of responding, he rips a hand up through the air. Mother can’t dodge all the vines, no matter how quickly she raises a shield against them. One slices at her shoulder and cheek as it flails. She cuts it down, but is forced several steps back. Around us, the fighting slows.
Queen Mab, the untouchable Empress of the Gloaming and Winter, the Lady of Air and Darkness, is wounded. The dark blood trickles down her cheek and drips into the trampled snow.
“A king’s purpose is to take his kingdom.” Goodfellow growls, clutching a hand over his injured face. “What more is there than striking down those who stand against you? Than moving your pieces into position and closing the trap around your enemies? Than using magick to climb? I have studied you, learned from you, fashioned myself in your image. I hid behind one face and watched you build this Court just as you did when you lived among the Seelie. I applied your lessons as I found people who believed my promises, who died to prove their loyalty to me. You have brought me here, to my triumph. Your blood is owed me. Your power is mine and I will claim it, as I have all others’. To rule is to conquer.” He lifts his arms wide. His sword glints, and the last remnants of the Green Man’s stolen power expand through the air, drowning out all other magick, drowning out the draugr’s roar of challenge. “What else is left for me to learn?”
The dead litter the ground. Sláine supports Roark’s weight even as he watches Goodfellow and his unmoving soldiers for signs of an attack. Mother’s gaze lingers over my brothers. She turns, her dark eyes searching the crowd, finding me, fixing there. There’s so much left unsaid in her tremulous smile. I open my mouth to call to her, but her smile vanishes, replaced with unnerving calm when she glances back to Goodfellow.
“Answer me!” His magick crashes against her glamour, raw power trying to carve her empty for daring to stand against him still. For daring to ignore him. He’s a child throwing a tantrum to gain her attention. “What else?” he demands.
Her sword tip wavers and drops as she lifts her chin and smiles. “Sacrifice.”
His blade sings through the air. My brothers and I scream out as one as Mother’s body transforms to crystalline planes and angles. She stands frozen in time and place, her beatific smile captured in the glittering pillar of clear ice. The iron sword nicks her shoulder and she shatters, ice shards flying out across the ground, denying Goodfellow his triumph. A final insult and reminder that he hasn’t earned a drop of her blood.
I fall with her, my body and mind writhing against the icy bonds of the Triumvirate awakening. There’s no fighting it, this raw, unfiltered power of the Winter Court drowning me and my brothers. There’s nothing except Mother’s voice whispering in my head as darkness takes me.
Finish this.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lugh
It hurts. The ancient shades trapped in my mind fight their way free, released at last by Mother’s fall. There’s no time to grieve her loss. The Triumvirate’s magick pulls me under like that frozen river, needles me with pinpricks of cold until I can’t stand it anymore and fight my way back up out of its current.