The Raven Queen (15 page)

Still, she reached out with a shaking hand and caught a little piece of her father's jacket between the tips of her fingers, a wail of anguish breaking through her clamped lips. Three years ago the younger Maddy would have shaken him, crying, ‘Wake up Daddy, please wake up!' but now she knew there were no happy endings. Hot tears scorched her face and she felt as if she
couldn't breathe through the hard lump lodged in her throat.

A groan from the passenger seat made her whip her head round. Her mother had lived for a few moments; Una had told her that. The little banshee had crept to her mother's side and held her hand as she looked into another world, before closing her eyes and slipping away as easily as falling asleep. Her mother's green eyes were looking straight at Maddy, but she didn't see her.

Maddy couldn't help it. ‘Mummy?' she asked in tiny voice.

The tinny screech of metal made her look up and she froze as she watched a long, white tattooed hand drag a talon down the side of the car, one more scratch that wouldn't be noticed by the Guards in the ruined bodywork. Rage built up in her as she watched the tall white fairy, with her grey tattoos, her stiffened hair and that distinctive damaged wing walk away from the car, a departing actor illuminated by the headlights until the deep night of the deserted country road swallowed her whole.

Maddy squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again she was back in the tower, Fachtna's sword in her hand. She could feel the weight of it making the muscles of her arm tremble and she braced the point beneath Fachtna's breast.

‘Why did you do it?' she asked, her breath hot in her mouth, heated by the lava of rage that bubbled in her belly. She was dimly aware of Danny and Roisin shouting but she couldn't hear their words over the pounding of blood in her ears. ‘Tell me why.'

Fachtna looked up at her and brushed her hair from her eyes with a lazy gesture. ‘I was following orders.'

‘That's no excuse,' said Maddy.

‘Fine,' said Fachtna. ‘It's my nature. As it is yours.'

‘I'm nothing like you!' said Maddy.

‘Steel in our souls, little Hound,' said Fachtna. ‘I told you once – you do what you think is necessary, and soon you stop being surprised at what you will do. But let me give you one piece of advice.' She reached up the length of the sword with her long, mottled arm and wrapped her fingers around Maddy's fist, leaning into the point of the blade until blood bloomed. ‘Never, ever, live on your knees.' She smiled at Maddy, her full lips covering the shark's teeth, and then she drove the sword through her own chest.

Maddy screamed as Fachtna's weight fell against her and her legs buckled as they both fell to the ground. She rolled Fachtna on to her back and crouched over her. She could hear Roisin screaming and cries of rage from Meabh and Niamh, but she ignored them all and leaned down, her tears splashing on to the war faerie's face.

‘What have you done, Fachtna?' she sobbed.

‘What was necessary,' whispered the faerie, the breath fading from her lungs. ‘So you wouldn't have to.' She smiled up at Maddy and gently laid a sword-callused hand against her cheek. ‘Tears for me? Who would have thought it, from the Feral Child! It wasn't that long ago we tried to kill each other.'

‘The good old days,' said Maddy, smiling through her tears.

‘You're a good girl,' said Fachtna. The light faded in her red eyes, her mouth went slack as the last of her
breath escaped and her hand fell away, the fingers limp. Maddy stared down at Fachtna, her anger draining away with her tears. The door burst open behind her and more people crowded into the room, but she ignored them all as she rocked over Fachtna's body.

Would she have killed her? Had she been angry enough to drive that blade through? She didn't want to be the person Meabh said she was, but for a moment she almost was. She couldn't trust herself. She looked down at her own body and felt sick. There was blood on her clothes – Fachtna's blood, on her hands, seeping into the lines of her skin, swirling through the whorls on her fingertips. She was dizzy and the room felt too hot and crowded. She staggered to her feet, the shouting voices all around clanging wordlessly in her ears. She shoved past them, her filthy hands batting aside silks and velvets to get to the door.

She gulped in the cold air of the stairwell and staggered down the steps, clinging to the rough stone walls for support. She pushed at the dusty cloth of the tapestry curtain and out into the hall, stumbling toward the dragon door and the steps that led down to the jetty. She was dimly aware of the handful of Tuatha soldiers lingering in the hall and their heads turning toward her as she crashed through the bones, but no one made a move to stop her.

Water
, she kept thinking.
I have to wash my hands. I have to get the blood out
.

She shoved open the dragon door so hard she lost her footing on the stone steps. Her rubbery legs gave way beneath her and for one moment she thought she was going to tumble clumsily into the sea below her as she slid down the rail-less steps on her side, her feet flailing for purchase and her hands scrabbling at the stone. After what seemed like an eternity, she stopped sliding and sank on to a step, taking great gulps of air into her lungs, shaking with relief, her clothes clinging to her with cold sweat.

She waited for her pounding heart to slow and for her breathing to return to normal, but her legs still felt boneless when she tried to stand. She sat back down with a hard bump, terrified she would fall again and not be so lucky this time. But the water was tantalizingly close so she went down the stairs on her bottom, like a toddler, shuffling from step to step, pushing off on to the one below with her hands.

The long, flat Tuatha boats bobbed on the water, oars up but with no anchorage that she could see. Like Meabh's walnut shell, they simply bobbed in place, waiting for their crews' return. Dark shapes flitted around them, humped backs that breached the quicksilver waves
with a blast of breath and dived again with a slap of a tail.

Selkies. She had forgotten about them.

She heard a splash and the sound of water dripping at the end of the pier. A selkie female had hauled herself from the water in human form and was crouched, watching Maddy. Seawater streamed from her long brown hair and her eyes, a rich and velvety brown with no whites. Her nose was wide and flat in her face, the nostrils broad slits that could be closed against water. Her webbed hands were splayed in front of her, and when she spoke Maddy could see the flash of ivory fangs.

‘So much blood, little Hound,' she said in a gentle voice. ‘You are truly a lost soul. But we can give you another purpose.'

‘How?' said Maddy.

‘Meabh has shown you a truth that she believes in,' said the selkie, ‘but truth is a jewel of many faces. I can show you another face. You can have a choice, little one, and what we are is the choices that we make.'

‘I won't become what Meabh says I am?' asked Maddy, taking a tentative step toward the selkie.

‘Not unless you choose it,' said the selkie.

‘And you can show me a different way?'

The selkie held out her arms. ‘Come, little one.'

Maddy walked over to the selkie, slipped to her
knees and leaned into her embrace. The selkie wrapped muscled arms around her, leaned to the side and pulled Maddy over the edge of the jetty and into the dark waters with hardly a splash.

Roisin screamed as she watched Fachtna drive the sword through her own chest. She watched as Maddy rolled her over and talked to the dying faerie, praying that somehow everything would still be all right. Through the blur of tears she willed Fachtna to breathe, to pull the sword from her chest and sit up, laugh even, as if the whole thing had been a bad joke. She pressed against Danny and could feel him shaking. She should say something to him, anything, but she couldn't take her eyes off Fachtna. Meabh and Niamh, on the other hand, were half out of their minds with rage.

‘What is wrong with her?' cried Niamh, pulling at her golden hair. ‘Why can she NEVER do what she is told?!'

‘Fachtna!' spat Meabh. ‘She just had to ruin it all. She couldn't make her death useful!'

‘You said this would work!' snarled Niamh, stalking
over to Meabh, her fists clenched at her sides and her butterflies bashing into each other in confusion.

‘Well, it would have, if the stupid creature had done what she was supposed to and butchered Fachtna like a pig,' said Meabh.

The two queens were face to face now, their beautiful faces twisted with anger and fear. ‘You said that giving her a taste of killing would unleash her dark half,' said Niamh, her voice lowered to a growl. ‘Instead she's weeping over that treacherous faerie like a baby. Does she even HAVE a dark side?'

‘Of course she does,' Meabh snapped back. ‘Do you think I would have spent all these years scheming to get her into this position, whispering in Liadan's ear so she would send Fachtna to kill her parents, working with
you
–' her voice dripped with contempt – ‘to get her back in here with that storm? Would I have worked so hard to make sure the wound to Liadan's pride would stay raw so she would bait the brat, if she didn't have that twisted side to her that could be fashioned into a weapon?'

‘Well, at the risk of sounding obvious,
dear sister
,' said Niamh, ‘you need to unlock that potential in the next five minutes. Just in case you haven't noticed, we have committed treachery in the castle of the Morrighan, so I need to get into the mortal world very soon. Did the old
fossil at least say who she was going to give the Winter crown to?'

‘I have no idea what she is planning to do with it, but she isn't going to give it to Sorcha or myself, and I doubt you're next in line. She was aggrieved you were not there to pay her homage,' said Meabh.

Niamh groaned and raked at her hair with her long fingers. ‘What are we going to
do?
We should be halfway to the mound now with a suitably unhinged Hound, not stuck in the Morrighan's stronghold trying to think of another plan!'

Roisin watched as Fachtna's hand fell away from Maddy's face and her fingers curled, still and lifeless. She let out a sob. She had always been terrified of Fachtna, but they had just lost the closest thing to a friend they had in here.

Meabh whirled at the sound of Roisin's sob, her green eyes lighting up with glee.

‘Silly me, I almost forgot we had spares,' she said, with a gloating smile. Roisin and Danny shrank back against the wall, wishing they could burrow through the stone as the witch queen walked across and towered over them.

‘They're not Hounds,' said Niamh. ‘They're no good to us at all.'

‘Maybe not,' said Meabh, her eyes flicking from
Danny's face to Roisin's and back again, her pink tongue licking at her lips, ‘but the Hound loves them. We simply need her to get pleasure from killing. If revenge will not motivate her, maybe saving a loved one will.'

Niamh looked at Danny and Roisin for the first time, her face lighting up. ‘Ooooh, I like that plan,' she said. ‘That could work!'

Meabh stooped and cupped Roisin's face in one hand, digging her nails into her soft cheeks. ‘What do you think, little rabbit?' she asked. ‘How far would your cousin go for you?'

‘Leave her alone!' said Danny.

Niamh squealed like a young girl and clapped her hands. ‘He has fight in him,' she said. ‘What a good start!'

The door to the room crashed open and bounced off the wall close to Roisin's head. She shrieked and cowered against Danny as the heavy wood vibrated under the impact. The Morrighan strode into the room, followed by a black-haired Tuatha and soldiers in Spring's livery. Her huge black wings quivered with rage as she faced Meabh and Niamh and spread them wide to cast her shadow over them like an angel. White-faced and silent, the two queens dropped to their knees and trembled.

‘Treachery,' hissed the Morrighan. ‘First from my favourite and now from two of my sister queens. How
dare you! How DARE YOU!' She turned to the dark-haired Tuatha. ‘King Aengus, did you know what your wife was planning?'

‘No!' said Aengus Óg. ‘I swear it.'

‘Then it seems you cannot govern in harmony with your wife, or that you are so dull-witted that she can sneak around in your kingdom and plan such schemes with a rival court without your knowledge. Or perhaps you are just a liar?'

Aengus Óg went white and a muscle jumped in his jaw, but his voice was soft and polite when he answered. ‘I can assure you, my queen, that I am none of those things.'

‘And yet something is amiss,' said the Morrighan, before turning back to the trembling queens. ‘You were told, Meabh, that the treaty with the mortal world would hold as long as I am High Queen. Yet not only have you gone against my wishes, but I also discover that you have actually been grooming a Hound, of all the Sighted, to breach the barrier between the worlds. And to compound your treachery, you have involved a fellow queen. What do you have to say?'

Roisin saw Maddy climb to her feet behind Meabh and Niamh. She turned, looked around the room and straight at Roisin, but Roisin could tell she couldn't really see anything. Nothing was in front of Maddy's eyes
now but Fachtna's face. Her eyes were unfocused, wide with horror, her chest hitched with sobs and she began to gag. She staggered away from Fachtna's prone body, past Niamh and Meabh, colliding with the Morrighan, swatting her velvet gown away from her face before shoving through the guards. The Morrighan turned her veiled face to watch her go.

Go, Maddy, go!
thought Roisin.

‘She's getting away,' hissed Niamh.

‘And where will she go?' said the Morrighan. ‘The only boats here are Tuatha and they will not move without a Tuatha hand on the tiller. Do not try to distract me. How have you become so greedy and dishonest while I slept? To try to breach my treaty, to reach your hands out for another's crown—'