CHAPTER35
Well, this could be going better.
Aodhan snatched a quick breath, agony stabbing through his chest. He’d cracked a couple of ribs in the fall, but there was no time to worry about that. All he could do was pray that one of the grating shards of bone didn’t puncture a lung. Losing the ability to speak—not to mention breathe—would be a really, really bad idea right now.
He finished the protection spell just in time. Even as he spoke the final syllable, a lump of ice the size of a horse shattered against the barrier.
“Really?” he said, because his last words might as well be sarcastic ones. “A snowball fight? Bit undignified for a prince.”
Apparently Morcant did not appreciate witty banter, because the next ice ball would have dwarfed the average elephant. Aodhan winced, feeling the impact reverberate through his shattered ribs. There were several significant downsides to powering ritual magic purely with one’s own life force—namely, that one had a finite amount of it. He was rapidly getting to the point where he was going to have to choose between maintaining the shield or his own heart.
Still, he wasn’t finished yet. Bracing his back against a tree trunk, Aodhan sketched another ward in the air, bolstering his flagging defenses. Every second that he endured could be the one that bought Cathy and Kevin their freedom.
Keep going, Cathy. He didn’t have the energy to spare to try to contact her down the bond, and he wouldn’t have dared risk it anyway. All he could do was pray that she was too far away to sense his peril. Don’t turn back. Get to your own world. Be safe.
“You won’t get past me,” he said, mainly because he didn’t want Morcant to realize that he didn’t have to get past him. “I’ve spent decades warding these woods. Why don’t you save us all a lot of time and aggravation and give up now?”
“Save your breath for your spell casting, mage,” the unseelie prince snapped. He turned his ice griffin to pace along the edge of the barrier, searching for a weak point. “You will need it.”
“You’re not looking so fresh yourself. Want to call a brief recess? I could do with a cup of tea.”
The only response to this was a rake of claws against his shield. Aodhan gritted his teeth as the griffin’s talons prized at the wards as though peeling away his skin. He pushed more power into the spell, each syllable like lead on his tongue. The barrier brightened, and the griffin yowled like a scorched cat, recoiling.
“Or we could just call it a draw,” Aodhan panted, trying not to show how much the effort had cost him. “Pretend we fought to a stalemate. You know, blood running on the leaves, defiant to the last breath, all that poetic nonsense. I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Morcant raised his sword. The blade started to glow with a pale blue light, cold fog curling around it. “I will not turn aside from my quest.”
“Yes, you’ve said that before. Though your armor was a different color then.” Genuine curiosity prompted him to ask: “How did you do that? It should be impossible for an unseelie fae to impersonate a seelie, or the other way round.”
Morcant’s impassive expression didn’t change, but a faint glimmer of light ran along his silver and gold fae marks; a sure sign of anger in a high sidhe. “Even to those who are not long for this world, I do not reveal my secrets.”
“You might as well tell me.” Aodhan kept his wand raised, ready to deflect the prince’s next attack. “It’s not like you’re going to be able to pull the same trick twice. Should have finished off Ferghal and Eislyn when you had the chance, you know. Bet they’ve told every high sidhe in the seelie lands the truth about the ‘Golden Knight’ by now.”
The marks on Morcant’s brow and cheekbones flared with rage. His mailed fingers clenched on the hilt of his sword, power spitting down the blade. “I should kill you for that alone. You have no idea what you have done, mage. Though I expect you would not care, given that you and your witch stole an innocent child. Tell me where he is, and perhaps I will yet show you mercy.”
“Not a tempting proposition, I’m afraid,” Aodhan said, while thinking: Witch? “You’re not getting your clammy hands on the boy.”
“Cease this pointless defiance, Aodhan of the Oak.” The ominous glow surrounding Morcant’s sword brightened. Ice formed along the back of his gauntlet, running up his armored forearm. “Oh yes, your name is known to me. Both courts tell tales of you, though not of your mysterious companion. Who is she, truly? Not one of the seelie or the unseelie, of that much I am certain. Is she the real reason you retreated to this remote valley all those years ago? To hide her away from the courts, and train her in magic?”
Great Herne, he really doesn’t know about Cathy.
Aodhan had assumed that Morcant must have somehow followed Cathy’s trail from Maeve’s sidhean to Ferghal’s estate, but it seemed the prince had no idea ‘Lady Rose’ was also Kevin’s mother. Aodhan took a moment to chant another ward, buying time while his mind raced. He couldn’t risk a flat-out lie, just in case Morcant had the high sidhe talent of detecting falsehood.
“I had to keep her hidden for her own safety,” he said. As a piece of misdirection, it had the advantage of being absolutely true. “But she’s more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Better slink back to your ice castle, Morcant. She’s beaten you once already. How does it feel to have lost to a mere human?”
Most high sidhe would have taken that as a mortal insult, but Morcant didn’t react. His fae marks didn’t so much as flicker, though his ice griffin hissed, feathers bristling.
“Yet she is not here now.” Morcant’s eyes narrowed, and Aodhan’s heart lurched. “Where is she? With the boy?”
“She’s keeping him safe,” Aodhan said, praying to all the goddesses that was true. “Good luck breaking into my library to search for them. You’ll need it.”
Morcant’s gaze moved past him, searching the clearing. Aodhan was devoutly grateful his emergency wards had automatically hidden the tree from view, concealing it in a fold of space. He hoped the crow-cat had made it inside in time.
Hewould have been safer inside, of course, but then he wouldn’t have been able to activate the concealment spell. At least outside, he was able to draw the prince’s wrath away from the oak. Things were bad enough without Morcant damaging his tree—or even worse, his books.
“Your spells will collapse after your death,” Morcant said, which was unfortunately accurate. “And without her steed, your knight will no longer be a threat to me. You cannot stop me, Aodhan of the Oak. I will take the boy, and his mother too.”
Aodhan fought to control his expression, but some flicker must have showed in his face. Morcant exhaled, a gleam of triumph flashing across his face.