My throat released a noisy gasp.
Melusina had survived.
She must have shed her outer layers, slithered down the hallway behind me, and lain in wait. How many lives had this monster consumed in the thousand of years she had forced Father to sire child after child? With a low groan, Erin’s body slumped, a dead weight.
I released the doe, lurched toward Melusina, and plunged the Sword of Tethra between her ribs.
Her serpentine tail lashed my legs. I lost my footing and dropped tailbone-first onto the marble floor. With a sharp cry, she hooked her tail beneath my sword’s guard, and threw it toward the stairs.
Cold terror quickened through my insides. I picked up the glowing torch and stuck the molten gold into her flank. Melusina arched and howled and slammed me against the wall. I stumbled back and fell onto Erin’s prone body.
“Mistress,” the Fear Dorcha’s voice trembled. “Please, don’t—”
“Traitor!” Melusina rose six feet high on her thick tail. “You were supposed to hold the girl steady while I devoured her, yet you let her slip from your dream.”
Erin twitched once, twice, three times, before falling still. I pulled myself off her corpse and glared at Melusina. Her features no longer resembled a faerie. Gone were the full lips and round cheekbones, replaced by skin stretched around a skeleton of dripping fangs.
The wound I made in her back was now a blood blister covered in a transparent veneer. She was either running out of magic to form a glamor or was running out of stolen bodies to hide her true form.
“You killed Erin,” I said, hoping the Fear Dorcha would turn against Melusina.
A low howl pierced the air. “For killing my love, I will plunge Queen Neara into a nightmare terrifying enough to stop her heart.”
My stomach plummeted.
Melusina darted in front of me and spread her arms wide. “You will not harm my daughter.”
Shock coursed through my insides at this surge of maternal instinct, but I shook off those feelings and backed away. Of course she needed me alive. I was her last chance for a strong body that would survive in a realm without Fomorian magic.
The shadow lurched forward, engulfing Melusina, who screamed and dropped to the ground. The Fear Dorcha couldn’t destroy her—nobody could except for me. I sprinted backward, holding the torch in front of me like a sword, the pounding of my heart driving me to go faster. I needed to find the Sword of Tethra before the Fear Dorcha turned his anger onto me.
Strong arms wrapped around my middle. My heart jumped, and I spun around to find Drayce standing behind me, trembling with the pain of his injuries. He pressed my sword into my hands and leaned against the wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I felt Melusina slither away,” he said from between ragged breaths. “I couldn’t let her capture you, so I left the others inside a shadow and walked down.”
Guilt and gratitude squeezed my heart. My gaze darted beyond the dead doe to where the shadows had consumed Melusina, and I sliced my palm with the sword. The corner stone thrummed against my chest in unison with my hammering heart. If the sword and my blood could kill the Queen of the Banshees, it would surely kill the Fear Dorcha.
“What should we do?” I wrapped my arm around Drayce’s shoulder and lowered him onto the ground. “I was about to broker Erin’s life in exchange for breaking the curse on the Summer Court, but Melusina killed her.”
“Leave with me.” Drayce sounded like he was about to lose consciousness.
The Fear Dorcha’s shadow melted away from Melusina’s prone form and stretched to Erin’s dead body. “King Drayce,” he sneered from the dark. “Have you come to watch me kill your mate?”
My throat dried. I stepped between Drayce and the shadow with my sword pointed to the floor. Despite the Fear Dorcha’s cowardice, he still had the power to send us into an eternal nightmare. And from the way he engulfed Melusina, it looked like he was putting her to sleep.
A memory rolled to the front of my mind. When we captured Erin in the palace, she told us that the ooze had been the Fear Dorcha’s shadow. And in our dreams, the male had appeared as a shadow. What if this was his true form?
“Stop,” said Drayce.
A howling laugh echoed through the hallway.
“I have come to bargain.” Drayce raised his hand, releasing the specter of a woman with brilliant, green eyes and skin darker than the tawny pelt of the doe. Long, blonde curls tumbled down her shoulders onto a white gown wrapped around her willowy form.
“Erin,” the Fear Dorcha whispered, his voice trembling. After a pause, his shadow lengthened and thickened. “Her spirit belongs to me.”
I clenched my teeth and swallowed back a mouthful of bitter bile. As much as I disliked Erin, nobody deserved to spend their eternity as the Fear Dorcha’s prisoner. I turned my gaze down to Drayce, about to beg him to send Erin’s soul to the Otherworld, but a gleam in his eye told me to trust him.
Holding my silence, I gave him a slight nod.
Drayce bared his teeth, looking like it was the only thing holding him from falling unconscious. “I can place her soul back into her body.”
“Do it,” said the Fear Dorcha.
“What will you give me in return?” Drayce asked.
“I will forgive Queen Neara. You and your companions may have free passage out of the Summer Court.”
“No.” Drayce’s voice cut through the atmosphere like a scythe.
For the next few heartbeats, nobody spoke. The Fear Dorcha’s dark form thickened as though readying itself to snatch Erin’s specter. I held my breath, urging Drayce to demand that the Fear Dorcha break the curse.
“What do you want?” The Fear Dorcha’s voice thickened with desperation. “I can free the Summer Court.”
“That’s a start,” Drayce replied, his breaths labored. “But you must leave this kingdom forever and leave
