Huntsman's Prey (22 page)

Jericho’s glow was so powerful that Aeric made out the rapidly beating pulse in her neck. Siria was bluffing, there was something to the water. But it was more than just the water, because alone the water could not hurt her. She was right in that. But she knew that Aeric knew and he wanted to pump his fists with joy when he realized he was right.

“But you see, it wasn’t Lissa talking to me that night. It was why I felt the difference in her touch, her body. It was why I couldn’t focus on the words she’d said to me. You knew of Lissa, but you did not realize she and Chrysalis were one, that is how Chrysalis tricked you, that is how she told me the truth.”

She smirked, but now there was also terror lurking behind her steely-eyed gaze.

“Chrysalis was right, you can’t see everything she does. She discovered the truth of this curse, Chrysalis was right all along. There was a way to rid herself of you. It’s why she played double agent, it’s why she gave you just enough to make you think she was your puppet, but Chrysalis was smarter, stronger than even you knew. Because I know how to destroy you parasite.”

She hissed and screamed. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Her eyes rounded on Jericho as if pleading with him.

Jericho laughed. “Oh, Siria, you’ve ruined yourself, and all for nothing. I know where this is going. I know what you’ve done, and now the rest of the world will too.”

Danika rushed forward just then. “I don’t understand,” she said, “what’s going on, what’s happening?”

Jericho tossed her a proud grin. “Stay back, angel. Until we’ve split Siria from Chrysalis she is still very dangerous. But grab Galeta and Esmerelda, tell the Blue to alert the fairy council, all will be revealed soon.”

Aeric’s heart sped, his pulse thundered through his ears like a stampeding herd of wild stallions. As much as he hated the imp, Rumpel had saved his ass.

As if thinking of the demon conjured him, suddenly a pillar of flame manifested just beside Aeric.

Chrysalis continued to scream and wail, trying desperately to sever the bonds of rope penning her in.

“What do you want?” Aeric turned to Rumpel who was still dressed in black leather, but with the flames licking at the collar of his jacket he looked more like a demon from hell than the malformed man child most fairy tales made him out to be.

Rumpel’s smile was wicked as he said, “You owe me, hunter. I’ve not forgotten your debt. And I call it due.”

“Now!” He growled. “I’ve not even saved my girl yet. This can wait.”

Scrubbing his jaw, Rumpel shrugged. “I’m a patient man, you’ll save her, then you come to me.”

Locking his jaw, Aeric curled his fists.

Suddenly a scroll appeared; the very one he’d signed his name in blood with.

“You see this, huntsman? This…” he shook it, “is an unbreakable pact, you don’t keep to your end of the bargain, and neither will I.”

“I already know how to save her,” he snorted.

Rumpel chuckled. “Humans, such hubris you all possess. Do you honestly believe you solved the riddle all by yourself? I planted the truth in there, only to be revealed the moment needed. Because, if you weren’t aware already, Siria has gleaned information from Chrysalis’ pathetic, little brain in the past. If you’d so much as hinted to the truth, the outcome would be…” he looked around with a look of profound satisfaction, “much, much different.” Staring right at Aeric, Rumpel smiled. It was an easy going, friendly grin. One that, to an outsider, would make the man appear much more trustworthy than he was. “Now, what do you think would happen if I turned back the hands of time, oh say,” he glanced at the watch on his wrist, “thirty minutes ago? Hmm? And perhaps I might even pluck,” he mimed plucking an object from Aeric’s head, “the memory right out.”

Fury boiled and bubbled like a frothy cauldron in his blood.

“Ah yes, now you see.” Golden eyes glimmered. “Fix this mess, and then we leave.”

“You filthy son of—” Aeric turned to rush him, but Rumpel vanished in a plume of sulfurous smoke.

That’s when he was aware of the eyes blinking large back at him. Alice was like a deer caught in a hunter’s crossbow. Hatter didn’t look shocked, so much as confused.

“Who were you talking to?” Alice whispered.

Knowing that Rumpel could only be seen if he wished to be seen, trying to convince the two of them he’d not gone crazy seemed pointless at best. He shook his head.

“Then can you please,” Hatter growled, “tend to my daughter?”

“Please?” Alice said it softer, much more kind than her husband.

Just then a pop of indrawn air sounded and before them was the Green wearing only a cloak of Ivy and Hawthorn, Danika buzzing agitatedly, and a glowering Galeta in a robe of arctic ice.

“What is this about?” The headmistress sneered, glancing between the lot of them.

“Judgment has been called,” Esmeralda the Green (fairy of truth and justice) intoned in a deep, throaty breath. Her eyes had gone completely black, as they always did when she peered into the realm of truth and justice.

When a fairy, or denizen of Kingdom broke law or faith with their realm and the matter was severe enough, they had to go before the fairy council. But sentencing always fell to the Green.

The wind whipped up then, rushing through the trees and bowing branches as they rustled and shook from Esmeralda’s gathering powers. A green mist rolled from beneath her feet, and her body crackled and sparked with raw volts of energy.

With a loud inhale, she rolled her head toward Chrysalis and shook it. “There are many present inside this one, but one who stole her way in at precisely five minutes after birth.”

Suddenly Galeta seemed more interested, and listening intently to what was being said.

Esmeralda continued speaking into the absolute and sudden quiet around them. “Siria, daughter of the sun, has broken faith with all of Kingdom. She has trespassed where she does not belong. To do it she made a deal with the broker.”

“Damn that imp to the bowels of hell,” Danika snapped. Esmeralda didn’t startle or blink out from her trance at Danika’s sudden intrusion.

Finally the fury of Chrysalis ceased, and a sudden keening took over. “No, no. Please, no. I only wished…”

Galeta hissed and if Aeric wasn’t mistaken, looked genuinely shocked. Which he found to be oddly shocking in and of itself, Galeta was known far and wide as being no sympathizer of Danika.

Esmeralda pointed a clawed finger. “Before punishment can commence, the souls must be untwined.”

Jericho nodded and glanced at Aeric. “You ready?”

That night in the woods when Chrysalis had confessed the truth, Aeric hadn’t understood what she’d meant about his sand. How the sand could strip and burn, but how it would ultimately cleanse. He’d thought it nonsense, but she’d told him what to do.

“Yes,” he nodded, “I’m ready.”

Everyone stared on as Jericho took the first step into the water, carrying a sobbing Chrysalis in his arms. She no longer fought him, she’d lost and she knew it.

Immediately a burst of pure moonbeam encased them, shooting straight up toward the eternal reach of the sky.

“Now you.” Esmeralda inclined her head at Aeric.

None of what he was about to do would hurt him, but it would torture Lissa and the thought made him ill. Chrysalis had begged just before turning back to do it, to make it right again. Lissa would want that too.

The moment he stepped foot into the water the cold shocked him, made his limbs want to lock up and freeze, but he shoved it aside as he parted the curtain of light.

Blinking against the sting of its white intensity, he looked at the man in the moon who no longer resembled flesh and blood, but was now only light.

“Are you ready, hunter?” Jericho asked in the disembodied whisper of a ghost.

“Yes.” He muttered, and then, not giving himself time to rethink it, Aeric called forth his sand.

His body was nothing but millions upon millions of particles of sand. He whirled toward the limp body in Jericho’s arms. The second he touched her flesh she screamed.

He didn’t want to do this, didn’t relish the thought of hurting her. So he chanted the only thing in his head that gave him strength enough to do it.
Save them.

He poured his sand down her mouth, and filled her body.

Her dying screams echoed through him, filled his brain with raw pain. She was hurting, she was hurting. And even as he scrubbed at the blackness that clung to every inch of her, he wanted to leave. He wanted to escape, wanted to hold his woman and never hurt her like this again. Never cause her such harm.

But Chrysalis had begged and Lissa had loved him.

Her love kept him moving. Kept him gathering every bit of the darkness that did not belong. It wasn’t easy, and took so much longer than he’d hoped it would. But finally, finally he was down to the last part.

Her black, beating heart.

The darkness clung like parasitic tentacles, sinking its roots so deep inside her that Aeric knew one wrong move and he’d kill the host. He’d kill his Lissa.

Savethemsavethemsavethem
… repeated like a litany throughout his awareness. It was the only way.

The only way.

Wrapping himself around the black, he pulled, and the echoing cries of her agony almost undid him.

First one dark tentacle came off, and then another, and then another—until only one remained, the one deepest in the center of her heart.

This one would kill her. There was no way he could undo it without causing massive damage. He couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t do this to her. If they had to live with a daughter and he with a woman who sometimes hated him, then that was what they’d have to do. They’d figure out another way. But he wouldn’t end her life.

Aeric turned, but then he heard a voice whispering to him inside the beating. A gentle stillness that fluttered all around him and it was warm and inviting and so pure it made his own heart cry out in despair.

Do not leave me like this…

This time it wasn’t Chrysalis’ voice he heard, it was Lissa’s and his soul bled.

Lissa!

Aeric… I feel you inside me. I didn’t know I was sick, I swear it, my love. I swear it.

I know.

Her sadness was heavy as it settled on him.

You have to do this. You have to take her out of us.

How do you even know I’m here?
He asked.
Chrysalis said you did not know of your other side?

Just then he felt the fluttering awareness of a second presence. It was as soft and gentle as Lissa’s, but tempered with a hint of passionate madness.

She told me the truth,
Lissa’s words felt like a caress on his soul.

I’m sorry, Lissa. I can’t do this. I can’t kill you. I won’t. I’m not going to lose you again.

That’s not your choice to make. Chrysa showed me the things we’ve done, the peoples we’ve hurt, I will not live that way. Not again. Do what you must to take reflection out of us. I will come back to you. I vow it.

Her absolute belief in him made him feel a level of self-loathing like he’d never known before. Aeric could still feel the agony of her body, and yet she spoke to him with love. The things he was doing to her, it was killing her. She had to know it. And yet she begged him to continue.

No matter what happens, Aeric, I’ll never regret knowing you and loving you. But you must take her out of us. I’m sorry to ask you to do it, but you are the only one I truly trust to fix us.

I’m killing you Lissa, I feel it with each slice of the darkness. I feel you tremble around me, I can’t do this. Please don’t ask me to end you this way. I…love you.

The warmth of her own love flooded him, filled every empty, hollow spot inside of him and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and drift away on it. With her. He’d finally found his truth, found his one true love.

I love you too, so much. Now you have to let me go…

Breathing a final word of adoration to her, Aeric forced his sands to split the final root of darkness in half.

Chrysalis jerked, her body spasmed all around his. Aeric had just seconds to gather up every fleck of black and rush from out of her, before she heaved a final breath and died in her godfather’s arms.