I jerked the spear backward, twisting it, not to cause more damage, but simply to loosen it from its sheath of flesh and bone. When the spear had come far enough back through her body, she began to fall to the floor. I just had to hold on, and the weight of her body and gravity pulled her free of it.
I looked at the bloody spear and tried to feel something, anything. I used the hem of my gown to clean the blood away, then I handed the spear back to Sholto. I would need both hands to ride.
He took the spear from me, but leaned in and gave me a gentle kiss, the tentacles brushing
me gently, like hands trying to comfort me. I could not afford that comfort yet. There was work to do, and the night would fade.
I drew back from all the comfort he offered and said, "We ride."
"To save your Storm Lord," he said.
"To save the future of faerie." I turned the mare, and this time she came easily to my hand. I set my heels in her flanks, and she bounded forward in a flare of green flame and smoke. The others spilled behind me, and the glow was as white and pure as the full moon, but here and there the gold of the Seelie banquet room seemed to have absorbed into the white, so we kept that silver and gold glow. My grandfather saluted me as I rode past. I did not return the gesture. The jeweled doors opened for us.
I whispered, "Goddess, Consort, help me, help us be in time."
We rode past the great oak, and again there was that sensation of movement, but there was no summer meadow, no illusion. One moment we rode on stone, in the halls of the Seelie, the next our horses were on grass, in the night outside the faerie mounds.
Lightning cut the darkness ahead of us. Lightning not from the sky to the ground, but from the ground to the sky. I called, "Mistral!"
We rode toward the fight, rising above the grass, gaining the sky, and rushing like wind and stars toward my Storm Lord.
Chapter Nine
Mistral on his knees, one hand outstretched; arrows flying, their heads glinting dully in the hot, white light. Dark figures in the trees. Something smaller moving on the ground behind Mistral.
I tracked the flight of arrows not by sight but by the reaction of Mistral's body as they hit him. He staggered, if you could stagger when you were already on your knees. His body hunched forward, then fell to one side, only his arm keeping him from the ground. He shot another bolt of lightning from his other hand, but it fell far from the trees, scorching the ground but not reaching his attackers.
I leaned low over the mare's white shoulders. Down there was one of the fathers of the children inside me. I would not lose another of them. I would not.
Sholto seemed to understand, because he called to me, "We will take the attackers. You see to the Storm Lord."
I didn't argue. Mistral was shot full of cold metal. If he was to be saved, it would have to be soon. I didn't want vengeance in that moment. I wanted him alive.
Mistral fell on his side in the winter-ruined grass. The wind of our passage blew his hair around his body, tugged at the cloak that spilled around him. He didn't seem to notice. He pointed his hand at the trees. Lightning flared, and we were close enough that my night vision was torn; when the light left, I was blind in the dark.
There was an art to sitting a horse when it went from flying to being on the ground again. I did not have that art complete, so it was jarring as the horse's hooves crunched on the frosted grass. I had to sit on the horse in the dark while I waited for my vision to clear. It was spotted sight that returned, but it was enough to show me Mistral's body terribly still on the white and black of the ground.
The only light was the green of the flames from the mare's hooves. It was a glow that reminded me of the fire Doyle could call to his hands. I had left him hurt. If he was conscious he must be wild with worry, but one disaster at a time. Doyle had doctors, while Mistral had only me in that moment. I slipped off the mare, and the thickly frosted grass was cold under my bare feet. The night was suddenly cold. The mare pulled away from my hand, and ran after the others. I realized in that moment that I was alone. My vengeance was done; Cair was dead. I was at Mistral's side, and the magic that had sustained me this night was leaving. It was running at Sholto's side with the men we'd shanghaied from the Seelie Court. I could hear the hounds baying in the distance. They glowed against the trees, and gave enough light that I could see three figures, firing up into the hunt before the hounds spilled down upon them. I didn't think Sholto would have my squeamishness. He would use the hounds.
I went to my knees on the hard winter grass. Mistral's blood had melted the hard frost, so the ground was softer from the spill of his blood. His face was hidden by the fall of all that gray hair, not gray with age, for he would never age, but the gray of storm clouds. His hair was warm to the touch as I moved it away so I could search for the big pulse in his neck. I was never good