This circle has stood for eternity, since the Yeavering was just a speck in the darkness. Long Meg and her daughters watched the Night Lands become what they are now. And they’ll watch as Tam Lin tries to pay his tithe to Hell in order to take what he believes is the greatest of powers.
She’s not for the Faerie, Wuldres Thegn. We have given her to you.
The voice reverberates around my head. It is beautiful and compelling, and at the same time, it makes my head want to explode.
Take her and banish him.
Now the voice brings me back. It shows me all I need to be shown. It tells me all I need to know.
No one challenges with the Bluecap. No one hurts my mate. And the Night Lands have no power over me anymore.
KAITLYN
The shadow creatures swarm around Tam Lin as I wriggle in his grip. They’re part smoke, part ghost, and on the occasions I glimpse what I think is their faces, bladder looseningly terrifying. I don’t know what they are, but I can’t imagine they’re something which should be released into the Yeavering.
The Faerie Lord slowly lowers me onto the altar, even though I’m doing everything I can to fight him off. One now massive hand lifts, and I see Linton spin away from me. But the power holding me down is choking, and I can’t even cry out.
I’ve lost him once. I can’t possibly lose Linton again.
Three more shrieking shadow smoke creatures emerge from under the altar. My ears feel like they’re going to bleed from the noise.
And I can’t see Linton at all.
I manage to lift my leg and plant it into Tam Lin’s stomach. Rather than feeling hard, it feels squashy, like I’m putting it into a bog. He releases a gurgling chuckle.
“Whatever you do, little human, you will not be able to avoid your destiny.”
“I’m still…going…to…try…” I pull my leg free and attempt to kick him between the legs, if he still has legs…and if he still has something there which can cause him pain.
Unfortunately, because he’s somehow got bigger. Most Faerie are seven foot or more, but Tam Lin seems to be growing before my eyes, his body bulging, morphing, adding spikes where there used to be nothing but skin. So, my foot impacts something, but I’m pretty sure it’s not what I thought it was.
“If you’re going to fight, it is going to make this so much more enjoyable.” Tam Lin laughs.
His words only make me fight harder, trying to make myself liquid to slip out of his grasp, squirming and arching my back, hands scrabbling at his arms. I’m about to bite him when he wraps a hand around my neck and pins me to the cold stone of the altar, squeezing my windpipe and making me gasp for breath.
“Enough,” he snarls, his breath like a thousand rotting corpses. “It’s time for you to give up your soul and make me the ruler of the Yeavering and beyond the veil.
“I don’t think so,” I choke out. “You wouldn’t want my soul anyway. You have mixed me up with my sister.”
For a moment, he hesitates. Have I risked everything to gain a moment in which I might escape?
“Your sister?”
“She was supposed to come to the Yeavering, not me. I paid off the humans running the lottery to go in her place.”
Tam Lin lifts his head. It’s covered in great brown spikes, some sharp, some crumbling. His face doesn’t even resemble anything human anymore.
“Lord Guyzance would have known,” he rasps.
“Would he?”
“He would.” He shoves his horrible face closer, and I notice multiple eyes blinking across his cheeks. “He got close enough to you, after all.”
Something zips behind Tam Lin, or the horror which he has become. It’s not the shadow creatures which are howling above us as if calling more from the pit over which I’m laid. Tam Lin swirls around, temporarily loosening his grip.
I take full advantage of the distraction, ripping myself free from both him and the altar and rolling off, hitting the ground with a thump.
“This way, human!” a voice calls out from outside the stone circle.
