I cry out as soon as I see the archer in their midst. Linton flares his wings, flicking a dagger directly at the weapons bearer, but it’s too late. The arrow flies as the knife slices into the shoulder of the Redcap. Linton beats his wings, shedding scales everywhere, and spins overhead.
The arrow disappears. And then reappears clutched in his hand. He grins down at Tam Lin.
“Missed,” he says triumphantly.
Which is when another arrow flies through the air. This time it impacts him directly with a solid sounding thunk. I gasp, starting forward, only to run into Warden’s rump.
Linton swings around overhead and then drops back down next to Warden, his shoulders rounded.
He looks back at me, his wings drooping.
“Run, Kaitlyn,” Linton says, before his wings fall back and he drops to the floor, the arrow sticking straight out of his chest.
“Run!” Warden snarls, rearing up, his huge body blocking the Redcaps surging forward. “Go, now!”
I want nothing more than to get to Linton, his body slumped, broken on the floor, blood running from the wound, his hands, initially grasping at the shaft, falling away as around him Warden rages.
“Don’t let this be in vain.” Warden’s huge rump hits me, causing me to move. “Don’t let his sacrifice be the end.”
I tear my eyes from my sweet chaos mothman, knowing his tattered body will always haunt my dreams, and I run. I can’t see where I’m going. I can’t see anything through the tears.
Linton is dead.
Everything I thought I was fighting for. To keep my sister safe and out of the Yeavering, to stop other humans being brought here as slaves for the Faerie,everythingI thought was important—none of it is. Not a single thing. Not if Linton isn’t part of the living world anymore. He filled my heart in ways I hadn’t dreamed possible. He made my life light once again when it had only been darkness.
He can’t be gone. Linton isn’t allowed to do this to me.
Sobs I can’t stop crash through me as I run blindly on, away from whatever mayhem is continuing behind me, away from his body.
I need him so much, when I finally stop running, it’s to turn around so I can run back again.
I am not going to leave him. I can’t, I simply can’t.
But running and crying are two things I shouldn’t be doing as I step on my dress and go sprawling on the stone, my knees and elbows screaming at me for the stupid mistake. For too long, all the breath I had is gone, and I can’t get up, but I have to, pushing myself to my feet in order to run on, wiping my eyes with the heels of my hands.
“Alone at last.” Tam Lin stands in front of me, legs apart in a power stance, one hand resting on the hilt of his golden sword.
I have no weapon. If I did, I’d plunge it into his black heart and accept the consequences.
“Shame about the Bluecap,” he says, as if Linton’s death was nothing but a moment in time. “But then he did bring you to me, for which he was paid handsomely.”
I choke and splutter before finally forcing out through all the emotions bubbling within me, “I doubt you paid him at all.”
Tam Lin releases a dark chuckle. “And there you are correct, little one. The controls instilled in him by the brothers meant he didn’t even need gold. Nor did he feel any desire to come back to this place.” Tam Lin stares around at the stone walls of the wide passage before running his finger over the surface of a wooden set of drawers and inspecting it. “Whatever it is.” He turns his mouth down.
Rage hits me like a blinding light, and I go for him, slamming my body into his and instantly discovering that was a very bad idea. He wraps one arm around me, like a band of iron, if iron wouldn’t kill him. I struggle as much as I can, but I’m unable to wriggle free.
“You have a destiny, little creature. One I’m sure your tiny mind can’t even comprehend. It is something beautiful, something incredible, and when it’s all over, you can join your Bluecap in whatever afterlife he may inhabit.”
Tam Lin pulls me back from him by the scruff of my neck and holds out his hand. With a gust of foul breath he blows a scatter of glittering dust into my face.
And there is oblivion.
A darkness I do not want. But a darkness which embraces me, pulling me into its depths.
I have lost my Linton. The one creature who took me for what I was and never asked any more of me other than to take him the same way.
I will never see him again, and I embrace the dark because all the light has gone out in my life.
