“Ihaveto make things right with you,” he corrected. “You have no idea how much I love you, do you?”
When she didn’t answer, he nodded. “Let me put it this way. I don’t want to scare you, but I love you the way your father loved your mother. I wouldn’t raise you from the dead,” he added when Mal’s eyes widened and a flash of terror chilled her to the bone.
She’d forgotten that he’d gone and tracked down her father and looked into her past in the six years they’d been apart. He didn’t know the details, didn’t know about that last night, but he knew her father had raised her mother from the dead and that it had destroyed her.
“I’d never do that to you,” he reiterated, “but I get why he did. He couldn’t live without her, even the little he could get back from the grave. I’m not sure I could live without you either, but I’d never drag you back. I’ll come looking for you on the other side.”
Mal blinked, trying to wrap her mind around what he was saying. It didn’t compute.
He smiled wryly at her confusion. “It’s okay. I’ll show you. You’ll understand eventually.”
Mal opened her mouth to say something, though she wasn’t quite sure what, but she didn’t get the chance.
The table exploded. Shards of wood flew every which way, slivers biting into her. Mal flung her arms up to block her face and flung herself backward out of her chair, rolling onto her knees and up onto her feet.
Chaos filled the lobby.
It was like watching a massive horde of Animaniacs on meth and acid having themselves a destruction derby, sans cars.
They swerved and swarmed, jousting and playing some form of baseball crossed with soccer, with a little bit of basketball and rugby worked in there. It was a full-contact sport.
Only one chandelier remained hanging, and it swung drunkenly, half its crystals missing. Many of the paintings hung askew or had been knocked to the floor, and the top third of a marble column had been knocked off. The furniture had become part of whatever game the pixies played and was being flung around with the aid of magic. Some pixies seemed to be to surfing on it. One of the couches hit one of the big windows. Glass shattered and flew everywhere, while the couch teetered on a crossbeam, then dropped like a missile. Other pixies skidded across the floor on the rugs, scrunching them into accordion folds before turning them into magic carpets and whizzing off through the rest of the auberge.
Three pixies dived through the center of the action, playing keep-away with something. Occasionally one of the two pursuers would draw to the side, hovering and watching, searching for an opportunity to catch the leader, before diving back into the fray.
Overall, this group of pixies were smaller in stature than others Mal had seen. They had pale green skin tinged blue with dapple markings that were unique to each one. Most had long hair held in one or two long braids. They tended toward some version of silver hair, some tinged with bright color: yellow, orange, gold, pink, lavender, purple. Probably a sign of interbreeding between clans.
Generally pixies didn’t have any rituals that smacked of actual marriages, which is why this wedding—and to a giant, no less—was so bizarre. Mostly there were short-term alliances and orgy free-for-alls at clan gatherings to spread out the gene pool. Mal wouldn’t be surprised if there was going to be some of that at this wedding.
They all dressed in some form of tight-fitting pants and clingy tunics. Some wore outer robes and overskirts that tied down to keep them from getting in the way while flying. Pixies also didn’t do gender-specific clothing at all, which didn’t help when trying to identify who you were dealing with. In fact, not a lot separated the sexes, but the females were slightly curvier with small breasts, and they had a second set of teeth behind the first, kind of a like sharks. Males had only one set.
Small as those pixie teeth were, they could rip holes in dragon hide. History said that swarms of pixies had been known to take down a dragon. Mal didn’t know if she believed that, but then again, dragons weren’t really a thing anymore, so maybe the pixieswereresponsible for their going extinct. She wouldn’t be surprised. While they were known to be fun-loving pranksters, they could also be bloodthirsty and vindictive. Especially the females, who tended to be clan guardians.
They each had six wings. Two sets were shaped like dragonfly wings, but with dramatic, butterfly-type coloring, and they shimmered as if covered with diamond dust. There was a black market trade for pixie wings, which was one good reason pixies had for being suspicious and violent. Too many had died or woken up wingless after poachers got ahold of them.
The last set of wings were transparent, and only about a third of the size of the others. They could twist and shift in random directions, acting like rudders in the air, helping them make quick turns.
Many of them carried weapons strapped to their backs and legs and hips. Like pixie teeth, they were deceiving in their size. They were frequently doused with a poison or paralyzing potion and could cut through stone like butter.
Basically, one or two pixies in a fight were formidable. A bunch were a give-up-and-go-home situation.
Mal frowned. If someone had been trying to frame the pixies for killing the giants, then they’d done a piss-poor job. The pixies would have made much cleaner, sharper cuts. Then again, if ithadbeen pixies, maybe they’d been trying to cover their tracks. Basically, it was still six of one, half dozen of another, and maybe not even those.
Mal continued to watch the leader of the keep-away game, trying to figure out what the prize was.
When she finally caught a glimpse, her entrails shriveled.
This was so not good.
She backed up and bumped into Law.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re bleeding. You’ve got wood splinters sticking out everywhere.”
She didn’t look at him, not taking her eyes off the leader, who’d paused behind a writhing knot of her entangled brethren as she considered her next move. Her pursuers had lost track of her for the moment.
“I’m guessing you haven’t noticed the three pixies playing keep-away,” Mal said, ignoring his concern.
“Mal, you’re bleeding. You need to get looked at.”
