She pressed into my touch. “Then I’m grateful to him and to you.”
“There was an unfortunate side effect, though.” I straightened. “His magic is of the mind, and although he tried to protect us with wards around the bed, his worst nightmares spilled over to those nearby.”
“You mean… to you.”
“I lived those moments like they were my own. He’s the one who helped take Innesol, but I can smell the blood of the battle, hear the ring of steel, see the civilians they captured. His memories—his worst memories—are mine.”
We rode on in silence for a long while, then Kat gathered the reins in one hand and reached back. Her gloved fingers slid into the hair at the nape of my neck, and she pulled me close. “I’m sorry, Bastian. That sounds…” She shook her head. “That’s why you didn’t want to sleep—you didn’t want more nightmares.”
I let my chest press against her back and my arm snake around her waist. I inhaled all the fresh promise of her scent and took every scrap of comfort I could.
Too exhausted to resist. Too tired of fighting. Too broken by all I’d remembered in Innesol.
I didn’t deserve her softness, not after what I’d…
I screwed my eyes shut. I didn’t do that. I didn’t take those people to the Horrors.
I had plenty of reasons to feel guilty, but that one wasn’t mine.
So I let myself sink against her, and I let her comfort me as we rode away from the sunset.
27
Bastian
Kat urged our stags through the city gates as they turned from the clear crystalline of Luminis to the smoky quartz of Tenebris. The lack of moon had us both tense, but I kept my voice steady as I told her the most direct route to the palace.
The streets were empty—any sensible person stayed inside with doors and windows shut to keep out the Wild Hunt. Evergreen boughs decorated archways and the bridges between towers, ready for the coming Winter Solstice.
I found my thumbs circling Kat’s hips again, though I’d have been lying if I’d said it was only for her comfort.
When we reached the palace, the sunset blazed behind us, and twilight’s indigo sky rose behind the turrets and spires. From inside the guard house, a woman peered out and waved us through. On the new moon, even the guards stayed safely indoors.
We trotted across the bridge, Kat’s body thrumming with tension. River Velos’s magic hissed over me. Stay out. If I were fully unseelie, I wouldn’t be able to cross at all.
The stable yard was empty and silent as darkness closed overhead. We hurried into the covered aisle, led the stags into the nearest stalls, and shut them in safely.
Kat was opening the double doors into the yard when I heard it.
The huff of a stag ridden hard. The clink of armour.
Heart lurching, I grabbed her. One hand over her mouth, I pulled her back. Her body tightened but she didn’t fight.
“They’re here,” I whispered against her ear. I didn’t know how. They shouldn’t be able to cross the river. Unless they weren’t unseelie as we’d always believed, but something else.
The pulse leapt in her throat, close enough I could feel it on my chin, but she dipped her head in acknowledgement.
Slowly, slowly, I backed from the door.
Outside, hounds sniffed at the paving and whined, frustrated they couldn’t find what they’d scented.
We drew level with the door’s hinges and a thin crack looking out onto the yard.
White hounds with burning red eyes circled the yard, like Fluffy and yet not. Her playful bound was nothing like the focused lope of these hellhounds.
Thirteen steeds, some stags, some horses, all skeletal with flesh hanging from their flanks and necks. They pawed the ground and snorted. Steam billowed from their flared nostrils and curled around their riders.
Even my fae sight couldn’t pierce the darkness that gathered around them.
Riding the largest stag, wearing a spiked helm, their leader said something in a voice that was ice scraping over steel. I didn’t know the language, but each word skittered down my spine like the blade of an enemy I’d forgotten.
Their nearest companion nodded and turned, surveying the yard. Deep inside a hood, a pair of pale, glowing eyes locked with mine. In my arms, Kat went rigid and made a soft sound against my palm.
The hounds lifted their heads, flaming ears pricking as they sniffed the air.
Barely breathing, I eased my shadows to the door and pulled it shut. At the click of the latch, my shoulders sank and Kat sagged.
“Fuck,” she muttered when I released her. “Did you see?”
“Oh, was there something out there?”
She spun, then huffed a disbelieving laugh at me.
I grinned back, able to joke now we were safely shut in. The Wild Hunt couldn’t enter a building with closed doors and windows.
She glanced towards the yard. “Have you ever known anyone to see them and live to tell the tale?”
“I saw them once. But otherwise… no. I suppose that makes us lucky. Looks like we’re in here for the night.”
Her eyes widened at me. “You’re doubly lucky.” She shuddered as if shaking off what she’d seen in the yard. “Well, it’s not my first time sleeping in a stable. Though deer smell different from sabrecats.”
She took care of the stags, who we’d abandoned into their stalls in our rush, while I climbed into the hayloft and used the blankets from our travels to make a bed in the straw.
When she climbed the ladder after me, I bowed with a flourish. “Madam, may I welcome you to the Marwood Inn?”
She chuckled and took in the blankets and the twinkling lights I’d gathered under the hayloft’s rafters. “And how long have you been in the innkeeping business, Mr Marwood?”
“Not very long. I’d welcome any feedback madam has on my humble establishment.”
“Hmm.” She patted the bed I’d made from bales of hay before sitting on it experimentally. “The beds are surprisingly comfortable. Sorry, bed.” She raised an eyebrow at me.
“My apologies, madam, space is at a premium.” The hayloft was packed with straw and hay, leaving only an intimate corner for us.
“And you don’t appear to have any kitchens.”
“Ah.” I raised my hand and produced a plate with the last of our camping supplies—one apple, a heel of bread, and a piece of cheese.
“I take it back. You’re spoiling me with this bounty, Mr Marwood.”
“We aim to please at the Marwood Inn.”
I sat beside her and we shared the slim pickings in companionable silence. It felt like it once had. Like we were away in Albion where I didn’t have to think about the safety of an entire realm, where I wasn’t the Night Queen’s Shadow, the Bastard of Tenebris, the Serpent.
I could be what she called me: Bastian.
Alone with our teasing jokes, it felt like what she’d said at that party was true. I’m yours. There was no husband to interrupt us as I’d been about to claim what she’d said was mine—what she’d given freely.
Or almost freely.