Whatever I was, I wasn't corporal and I couldn't touch.
Ciarah and Medbh rolled right through me, as if I weren't there. Turning to follow their tussle, I saw blood, a knife sticking out of the Veil Keeper's shoulder as she locked her hand around the False Queen's throat and picked her up from the cemetery ground.
“Killian!” she called out, lifting her hand up and beckoning me forward. “Come to me!”
Moving forward, I reached out a hand … and found Ciarah's fingers curling around my own. She yanked me forward and inside of her. Not the way I'd enjoyed being inside of her before, but … my spirit melted with her body and ice crackled at her fingertips.
Medbh threw us off and into the side of a crypt, agonizing pain shooting through Ciarah's body. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to heal her. Instead, I felt her draw from me, pulling ice magic out to throw at the fae woman in her stolen witch body.
The other spirits surrounded us, putting their hands on the Veil Keeper's body, sending power and magic surging through her.
The Veil Keeper rose to her feet with me as a passenger and took off at Medbh, channeling all of her borrowed magic into one blow. She hit the woman with a surprising amount of force, sending the witch's body tumbling into a sea of shadows and wolves as Raphael's pack fought for the upper hand.
I supposed he would have to tell Le Gardien about our strange history together.
Goddess knew I wasn't going to get a chance.
I relaxed into Ciarah's control, the magic that was a part of my very soul traveling from my spirit and into hers. She hit Medbh with one more burst of magic and froze her in place, shackling her to the ground amidst all the fighting. Ciarah then lunged forward and fell to her knees next to the struggling witch, pulling the knife from her shoulder and shoving it into the woman's throat.
A short, brutal time later and her head was separated from her shoulders.
A swirl of power came from the woman's neck, twisting in the air like a snake before it solidified into the shape of a woman.
“Veil Keeper, your time is past. New order reigns in Faerie. Accept that and stay here, rule with your remaining lords over humanity. You could be gods this side of the veil.”
“We are gods both sides of the Veil,” Ciarah yelled out, in a voice that was a mix of both mine and hers. With a wave of her hand, she sent the spirits around us away.
None of them came to her, so I knew they'd been sent for rebirth.
“I can restore your Lord of Winter if you enter into a fae's bargain with me,” the spirit of Medbh announced, but Ciarah was done and with another wave of her hand, the woman shimmered … and disappeared.
But where the other souls had been quickly judged and sent along, Medbh's 'spirit' was simply a trick of light and magic. The woman herself—body and soul—were safely locked on the other side of the Veil, beyond our reach.
As soon as she disappeared though, the shadows went with her.
“Your spear, Veil Keeper,” Rafe said, naked and dripping blood. He handed the weapon over and watched as Ciarah took it in shaking hands. She was so badly injured, it was killing me to know I had to leave her.
I could feel her holding me in place, using her body to keep my soul on earth.
But I couldn't stay here.
The longer I sat there, the less I seemed to remember. Memories leapt away from my fingers, as slippery as the frogs in the bayou that Reece used to catch as a child. It was time for me to go, whether or not Ciarah wanted to release me.
I need to go, Cher, I started, but she was shaking her head.
No, Killian, she growled, turning and bounding up the ice steps I'd left next to the crypt.
But even if she wanted me to stay, I didn't have much choice.
Once my spirit started to fade, she'd have no choice but to judge me and send me on my way.
Goodbye, le Gardien, I said, and then I forced myself out of her body … and away.
“Killian!” I screamed, reaching out for his spirit at the same moment I slammed my fist onto the chest of his comatose form, restarting his heart with a burst of power that seemed to travel from the Spear of Lug, into me, and then out of my fingertips.
My other hand literally grabbed his soul and jerked it back, shoving it into his body as he choked and gasped and struggled against my grip. I couldn't blame him—a spirit's natural desire was to move on. He was simply trying to follow the natural order of things.
But I was the Veil Keeper, and I was all about bending the natural order to my whim.
Mine.
The word echoed in my head as Killian rolled to his side and pushed up to his knees, chocking and coughing, his skin rippling as he dug his nails into the cement roof of the crypt.
“How?” he gasped out as I dug my fingers into his hair, leaning close to the top of his head. I didn't care about the blood or whatever the rancid black goo was that covered him.
“I have the power to judge souls,” I said as he lifted his blue eyes to mine. “I also have the power to put them back where they belong. You gave all your magic to Arlo to save him—your body wasn't damaged, just too empty of power to keep your soul tethered. All I had to do was give a little bit back.”
“A little bit,” Killian choked out, exhaling with a shudder. “I feel like I could move mountains, mon cher.”
“Thank da gods,” Reece said, moving over to kneel beside me and Killian. “We for sure knew you'd be able to fight your way outta dis one, you. But Kill? He's as much proof of your miracle magic as anything I ever need to see.”
Arlo, Rafe, Fionn, Dougall, and several of the other officers crowded around us.
“Those were your captors,” Arlo grumbled—it wasn't a question.
“They were,” I whispered, memories gnawing at the back of my mind, worse horrors that I hadn't yet uncovered on my own. But the Spear of Lug knew. It held some of the memories I needed in order to take control of the Veil again. “But they …”
My voice trailed off as I stood up and glanced down at all the bodies littering the ground. Some were mine, the fae of the Wild Hunt. The others were human, innocents dragged into this mess by the creatures of darkness, monsters I had no name for.
Heading down the steps, my Lords trailed behind me, Arlo supporting Killian's weak form. Raphael, Amelie, and Marcel followed after with my officers trailing behind. I made my way over to my mom's body and knelt down, fingers shaking as I reached out and brushed her hair from her forehead.
What an awful, awful trick, the type of cruelty that doesn't require knives or claws, blood or pain or bodies. Cruelty that kicks the heart, that rends the soul.
Leaning forward, I press a kiss to my mother's waxy forehead.