For Your Heart (Hill Dweller Retellings) (40 page)

    
Her words chill me far colder than the night air.  I feel Jeanette shrink behind me, shaking.  She may have won me away this night, but Roxel will want revenge and she could do enumerable things to break Jean’s mind.  I should have thought about that. Jean’s in more danger than ever before.

    
“And you.”  Her eyes flick to me.  “Tamrin,” she hisses my name.  “The best knight of my company, favored to whom I gave everything.  If I had known you’d betray me – finding some ugly little human girl to love more than me, I would have cut out your eyes and turned you into a tree so you couldn’t roam and conquest among these mortal girls.”

    
I try to make my voice sound even.  “No matter what you did, it would have been in vain.  I knew Jean before you stole me.  Even with no eyes and no ability to roam to find her, it is to her that my heart belongs and always will.”  It’s a straight truth, one that she took from me and now I have back.

    
I feel Jean press her face into my shoulder and I can’t help the slight smile of pleasure that comes.  How good it feels to love.  To have her again.  The
Aos Si
may have their fabled Mates, but humans have soul mates, too, and I don’t think the bond between us is any less strong.

    
With shrewd eyes, Roxel lifts the rose and slides her fingers over the petals.  My skin crawls.  “If I’d known your heart belonged to another, I wouldn’t have bothered saving it so.  I would have eaten it and left you with a heart fashioned of stone…You wouldn’t have loved me more or less with your true heart than one of stone.  Is it true?”

    
Swallowing hard, I nod.

    
Her face remains stoic as she drops the rose to the ground.  I dig my fingers into the dirt, knowing what is coming next and too weak to stop it.  I’m only human and she’s a monster with the power of angels on her side. 

    
She lifts her foot.

    
At the same moment that Jean cries out, perhaps finally realizing the true meaning of the rose, a massive
whumping
noise slams through the glade, knocking Roxel back against Twyla.  For a moment, there’s utter panic among the fae and the horses.  The
Aos Si
look to each other, confusion on their beatific faces. 

    
A purple-black light slips between the cracks in reality and shadow.  The sliver intensifies, lancing silver through the purple, fading black to blue.

    
The
Aos Si
part.  The horses shy back.  Under the joining of the two trees growing at the intersection of the crossroads, a waygate has opened and an ominous dark shape passes into this world.

    
Air escapes my lungs.  I know this figure from tales and nightmares alike.

    
The Hunter.

    
Taller than any
Aos Si
I’ve ever seen and clothed in all black with a hooded cape pulled over his features, The Hunter looks every bit the Grim Reaper.  He
is
the Reaper of
Aos Si
– he who comes to collect the tithe if not paid on time.

    
How late is it?

    
And has he come for me?

    
I glance back at Jean, entranced by the horror before her.  Does she understand who this is?  And why he’s here?

    
The Hunter steps forth from the gate and from behind come the hounds.  Wraith-like beasts with blood-red crowns upon their heads.  They hurtle at the
Aos Si
, knocking knights and courtiers to the ground, ripping at their throats.

    
Instinctually, I pull Jean into my arms, protecting her.  The first victims have fallen; the other Summer dwellers scatter down the crossroads and run into the woods, faerie and
Aos Si,
and noble steed alike screaming for mercy.

    
The only ones remaining are Twyla and Roxel.

    
The Hunter turns to Roxel who steps up, her expression livid.  “How dare you come collecting when I’ve already declared my tithe!”  She gestures at me.

    
The Hunter’s gaze travels down to me, lazy and unconcerned, then focuses back to her.  He shakes his head.

    
“No?” she squeaks, indignant.  “What do you mean no?  He’s my very best knight!”

    
He shakes his head again and points at Jean who glances at me, confused.

    
Roxel’s brows crease.  “I don’t understand.”

    
The Hunter reaches beneath his cape and draws forth a scroll.  I feel Jean fidget in my arms; she’s leaning forward, trying to see closer – as if she recognizes the rolled paper.  He hands the scroll to Roxel who pulls it open and reads, her face growing paler and paler by the moment.  “But,” she says, “that can’t be right.  Why was I never told of this stipulation?”

    
The Hunter lifts his hand, cutting off her indignant retort.  In the light of the sputtering lamps left behind by the torch bearers, I see his markings.  Moon-silver skin with writhing vines on hand and arm.  He’s
Aos Si
as well.  How could The Hunter hunt his own kind?  What agreement did he make with the demon? 

    
He touches his chest.

    
Roxel frowns.  “To keep me from trying to save my own tithes?”

    
He lowers his head in agreement.

    
With a half snarl on her face, Roxel looks at the rose near her feet.  Miraculously, it was not trampled in the stampede to escape.  “Then it’s not mine to destroy?  Is that what you’re saying?”

    
In answer, The Hunter stoops and picks up the rose.

    
I stiffen, uncertain what he’s doing.  He comes toward me.  I try shoving Jean behind me, but The Hunter crouches close and pushes back his cowl.

    
He is indeed an
Aos Si
, no mistaking his angelic features.  Like me, his hair is long and black, but his eyes are like amethystine stars and from each, he seems to weep an expanding universe.  He smiles a quiet sort of smile, his attention clearly on Jean, and offers her the rose.

    
Jean leans into me, almost as if asking if she should.  Without looking, I nod.  She reaches out a pale white limb – bound by a frayed promise for marriage – and takes my heart.

    
The Hunter gives her a slight nod.

    
“I-I don’t understand,” she squeaks.

    
The Hunter points at me, puts his hand to his chest once more.  Jean rolls onto her knees and looks at me.  “What do I do?”

    
I let the cloak slide from my shoulders so she may see the markings across my bare chest – the empty thicket of briars.

    
Swallowing, she stares at my chest and puts the rose to my breast.  A bright light explodes between us, hot and searing, knocking us away from each other.  I struggle to sit up, but it’s hard, like a new weight has been sacked across my lungs.  Gasping for breath, I look to my chest.  The thorns are writhing, whipping one across another and another, half out of my skin, half within, building a thick cage around the rose – around my heart.

    
Frightened, I look to Jean.  She’s staring, eyes wide, jaw dropped in awe.  She glances up, tears brimming in her eyes, and smiles.  She falls forward and wraps her arms around me tight and hard, but it’s a good pain.  A pain to bury the thorns back into my skin, to seal my heart where it belongs – between my every breath and the woman I love.

    
“To think,” she says with a breathy laugh.  “This whole time you were after my heart and I’ve had yours from the beginning.”  She buries her face into my neck and kisses my feverish skin.

    
Back on his feet, the Hunter turns to Roxel and Twyla – who both stare in disbelief.  Yes, he’s the most gorgeous of God’s creations, perhaps not even
Aos Si
.  Perhaps there’s no human blood in him, perhaps he’s simply an angel.

    
Expression stern, he walks toward them.

    
Roxel’s face drains white.  Twyla shudders, ridged.  The Hunter holds up a hand.  Out of the woods, the hounds materialize – as if waiting for the signal.  Half a dozen hounds, each as big as a man, fall with senseless hunger upon Roxel.

    
Jean sucks in a terrified breath and hides her face against my shoulder, but I watch.  I owe Roxel that much.

    
She punches and kicks and tries to call upon her Bender Talent, but there are too many and they go too fast.  She’s down and has no hope of getting up.

    
Twyla watches, hands closed over mouth in silent horror, as her queen is dragged, bloody and shrieking across the path and through the gate.  Her screams echo in the once silence. I close my eyes and let out a held breath.  Everything happened so fast, I couldn’t have helped her.

    
As his Hounds start dragging the carcasses of the already slain through the waygate, the Hunter plucks Roxel’s crown off of the ground, wipes it free of bloody dirt and holds it out to Twyla.

    
Underneath deflated bangs, she glowers at the delicate golden circlet inlaid with precious jewels and shakes her head.

    
He lifts it higher, his mouth and eyes tight and insistent.

    
She backs away.  “Isn’t there someone else?”

    
His head inclines and his eyes zone out – as if speaking from a distant place, though no words are passed for mortal ears.  He’s speaking to her in the way of the
Aos Si
, through thought and mind touch.  He holds it out to her again.

    
Twyla closes her eyes and makes a pained face.  “I see.”  And then, fingers trembling, Twyla accepts the crown of Summer.  Why she is expected or accepts that burden, I may never know.

    
Without another word, she walks away, her shape disappearing into the darkness.  She’s heading to Leah’s.  To the Summer gate.  She’s going home…The new queen of the Summer Court.  She will be a better queen than Roxel.

    
I draw Jean closer to me, as if her body alone could banish the cold dread in the pit of my stomach.  The Hunter stands quiet and resolute, a monolith of a man stationed before a gate that leads to a place every creature in Otherworld fears.  “Will you continue to hunt the rest of the court?” I ask.

    
The Hunter nods, his long black hair sliding over his shoulders.  “The sacrifice of the queen is only the beginning.”  His voice is low, husky, and a little uncertain – like he’s not used to speaking.  Despite that, there’s an obvious richness in his syllables and clarity of timbre that speaks of culture and age.  “Summer’s transgressions have drawn the dissatisfied gaze of the demon ruling the covenants that bind us.  He commands I cull many on this hunt.” 

    
He returns his gaze to the distance, as if staring after his receding hounds.  I can imagine them pushing through the Summer gate, searching the fens of
Tír na nÓg
.  Their howls echoing, eerie through the night and their massive bodies crossing over the moon, eating the space between worlds with preternatural speed.  Their white coats casting death shrouds across the land and their blood tipped ears and muzzles turning, seeking the cries of my people.

    
No, not my people.

    
Still.

    
A shiver runs through me as I picture all who might fall prey.  Most will truly deserve to be tithed for what they’ve done to others …But, however the courtiers abused me, they were my friends and family and comrades for longer than I can imagine.

    
The Hunter turns to meet my gaze.  He stares into me – through me.  He has the most stunning eyes I’ve ever seen.  A pale violet with silver rims around the pupils and darts of star shine glinting between the prisms.  They’re prettier even than Jean’s.  But that’s not hard for a being like the Hunter to do; he’s angelic while Jean is merely human.  Still, despite their beauty, they’re such sad eyes.

    
Does he despise doing this?  Being the Hunter?  What’s his past?  Who is this man?

    
“Why do you do it?” I ask him.

    
His gaze shifts from me to Jean.  She meets his penetrating glare for an instant and then turns her face into my neck as if uncomfortable with his attention.  I shift, wanting to protect her from his peculiar expression.

    
Finally, he looks away.  “No matter the creature, we all have something to protect, a reason to live.  It might be a belief or ourselves.”  He examines where the bulk of Summer Court had been standing moments ago, then shifts his gaze back to me and Jean.  “Or another.”  He looks away again.  “Or many.”