“Does no one teach the law these days?” he said mockingly. “Let me educate you, little cat. On Hallows’ Night, the Wild Hunt rides into the Deathlands. It culls the spirits of those who will die in the coming year. I am sure you already know the story. The hunt rides on the night of sundering because that is its nature and its purpose.”
I bowed my head, for I remembered the story my father had told me long ago about the Wild Hunt and a young hunter who had sought and found the other half of his soul. I remembered the day I had escaped from Four Moons House, when I’d heard a horn’s call on Hallows’ Eve rising out of the earth like mist and filtering down from the sky like rain. That call had penetrated my bones and my blood and my heart. No one fated to die in the coming year could escape the hunt.
“But that is not the only reason the Wild Hunt rides. Blood, Daughter. We must have blood. One mortal life feeds the courts for a year. The stronger the blood, the richer the feast.”
“The day court and the night court,” I whispered. “That’s what they’re called.”
“All serve the courts,” he agreed.
“The enemy doesn’t serve them.”
Movement stirred in the ice, and I realized I had gone too far. An owl swooped out of the empty air to settle on the perch. Its golden eyes chained me. I fell into the rip current of its gaze.
I was trapped in the banded, breathing heart of the ice. It was as cold as death and as heavy as the weight of an ice shelf groaning down to crush one fragile human heart. Beneath winter’s aching cold lies a deeper cold that leaches blood and heat into a vessel where stolen sparks can be shaped into more obedient forms.
“ The ice is alive. Not as you and I are alive. It’s not a creature or a person. But it lives, although I couldn’t tell you how or why. ” The recollection of Brennan Du’s words roused me.
I had been standing. Now, as if I had been brutally hammered by the power of a cold mage’s anger, I found myself on hands and knees although I had no memory of falling. I had dropped the cup, and it had rolled an arm’s length away.
I inhaled hard, air hit my lungs, and the dizzy whirling dread subsided.
Until I looked up to his masked face.
“The blood of the enemy is poison,” he murmured, as if he had once sipped it. “But the enemy found a way to enter our world through mortal hands, through the females who walk the tide of dreams. So must the courts enter the mortal world likewise, through mortal flesh. You will go to a place in the Deathlands that is surrounded by the Taninim, they who rule the seas. You can reach there because of the flesh you wear that you inherited from your mother’s blood and bone.”
Did “surrounded by the Taninim” mean an island? Was it possible the Wild Hunt could not reach islands? Or only one particular place? I knew better than to ask such a question directly.
“Sire, you already have servants who walk in the mortal world. Like the eru and coachman who brought me here. They pretend to serve the mage Houses, but they are really there to spy on the cold mages, aren’t they? To make sure no magister becomes too powerful a threat?”
Had he not been wearing a mask, I would have guessed he smiled, yet it would have been a smile one could not wish to see on a face. “Cold mages serve the courts without knowing they do. They comprehend in an attenuated way the power of the courts and do their best to avoid the Wild Hunt’s notice. They understand that if they spread their net of power too widely or grasp at too much, the courts smell a scent of power, and the Wild Hunt is unleashed to hunt them down.”
“That’s a clever way to control the power of the cold mages,” I agreed with what I hoped was a smile of rueful admiration, preparing my flattery in order to attempt a leading question.
“Do not play false with me, Daughter. I can smell it.”
To give myself a moment to think, I picked up the cup. It had not lost a single drop of the amber wine. “How shall we communicate while I am in the Deathlands? Can you see through my eyes and speak through my mouth?”
“Ah. You’ve pleased me with a clever question instead of an impertinent one. No. Your mother’s flesh blinds me to you except on Hallows’ Day. I will send my servants if I need to speak with you.”
My heart’s pulse thundered in my ears as a sense of relief flooded me. Well, then. Once I left this hall, he could not oversee or control my actions. Yet perhaps he was hiding a hook. “If that’s so, why send me? Why not send your other servants?”
“By your service, you shall receive answers. Until then, you will simply obey.”
He raised his cup to his lips, gaze on me; my hand raised my cup to my lips. Without drinking, he lowered his hand; without drinking, I lowered mine. I had to; his will forced me.
“You take my point,” he said. “We have reached a turning in the path. A power stirs in the mortal world. It pours from one vessel into another, and its motion churns and heats and cools the threads that bind the worlds. The courts whisper, for they are troubled. Has a cold mage reached too far and grasped for too much? Does an unknown power rise out of the lair of the enemy? This is your task: Find that power, identify it, and lead me to it, on the coming Hallows’ Night.”
My heart constricted. Or at least, that’s what the tightening sensation in my chest felt like. I touched my chin, where Andevai had cut me with cold steel. I knew what it was to discover, too late, that you have been chosen to be the sacrifice.
“Why should I betray anyone, when I know it means you’ll kill them?” I demanded.
“On Hallows’ Night, the Wild Hunt will ride, as it does every year. We will cull the spirits of those who will die in the coming year. And we will take the blood of one mortal creature. Why should you find that power, identify it, and lead me to it? Because otherwise I will choose which mortal’s blood we take. My eyes and ears have followed you and your companions, Daughter. I know you walked into the spirit world with a servant of the enemy. She walked in these lands and released a nest. My own servants should not have allowed her to escape, but their actions serve me regardless. You will spy out a fitting sacrifice, one whose blood is rich and strong. Because if you don’t, then on Hallows’ Night the hunt will track the girl you call your cousin until we corner her.”
Dismembered and her head thrown in a well.
I felt my courage flayed off my skin, an obsidian dagger slicing away filaments of hope.
Oh, Blessed Tanit. Gracious Melqart. Noble Ba’al. The threat of mage Houses, princes, and Romans hunting her through Adurnam seemed pathetic now. The mansa had been right, hadn’t he? We should have gone with the cold mages, for then none of this would have happened.
None of this would have happened now. But the Wild Hunt would track her down eventually, if not this year, then the next. It was only a matter of time for Beatrice Hassi Barahal, who walked the dreams of dragons in the unwitting service of the courts’ enemy. No one could stand against the Wild Hunt. No one. Unless the story was true that the headmaster had snatched his assistant from the jaws of the hunt. Yet he had sent Bee into the spirit world, despite its dangers.
“Let me repeat myself, so you fully understand me.” The Master of the Wild Hunt did not need to shout. His voice pierced me to the bone and crushed my heart. “There can only be one sacrifice. And there will be one. That is the law.”
So he settled his chains on me, for there was no one to help us, and no one to trust.
I’ll do anything to save her.
Anything.
Would Bee forgive me when I did?
“Now we seal our bond with a drink, Daughter. Pick up the glass.”
He drank, and therefore I drank. The liquor tasted of bees and fate, nothing more. I hated it.
But he was satisfied.
“You serve me now. I release you to your hunt.”
The crow flapped off his arm and straight for me. As I flung up my arm to fend it off, it raked me above the left ear with its talons. Pain burned along my neck. Blood welled. The crow plunged at me again. I jerked sideways, unable to fix myself on the springy ground made by the carpets. My blood spattered, flecks spraying around me.
The owl’s eyes spun like time’s hands racing forward. The hall of ice began to blur and distort as if it were melting. The carpets dissolved as the ground gave way beneath my feet.
I cried out as a warm wave washed over me.
