I looked towards the words, and they came from Lyel. No, Lileas. No, a figure who was both at once.Like they have always been.
“I am sorry!” they cried out. “It was laid upon us not to tell.”
I blinked, stared as Lileas lost her tail, as Lyel’s mailcoat turned to a flowing gown. “‘Us’?” I repeated. “Are there two of you, or only one?”
Lyel shook his head, and Lileas’s voice came from his lips. “We are both and we are singular. The Dark Fool had us under a geas, that if we told you the truth, we would be bound to one form only for the rest of our days. But I care no longer. I am Lileas whether you see me only as Lyel, Lyel if you see me only as Lileas. Whatever shape I am bound into, I will remain both.”
My poor, dear friend. I placed my hands on their shoulders, resting my forehead against theirs. “I am Faery, and all of Faery is of me. I release you from this geas.”
Lyel’s angular features resolved into Lileas’s; her tail grew back, and her peridot eyes wept crystalline tears. “Your Majesty is too kind, but it is all for naught if Faery does not feed this eve. The Teind requires an innocent’s life. A consort, a king, or someone the queen loves is the strongest and best!”
For a moment, I nearly thought she would volunteer herself.
Then I heard it. Hoofbeats, in the distance but getting closer. Snarling, barking dogs. The scent of rotting meat. A host of eldritch creatures that came riding forward, beings of death and eternity, doom, hunger, and rot.
The Wild Hunt.
Seelie and Unseelie both, my people grew silent, waiting to see what their queen would do. I lifted my head and did not let myself quake with fear, or with exhaustion. I stood as proud as the crown upon my brow.
The Horned One, hollow-eyed and dreadful, knelt before me, and his men followed suit, in a creaking of armor that echoed the sound of ancient bones. “You are our mistress now.”
The Wild Hunt showed me their allegiance.
I nodded and gave them my leave to rise.
The Horned One turned and gestured to the men behind him. Commotion spread through their assemblage, and a mortal man was brought forward, young and strong.
I knew him in a moment: the very mortal they had pursued on that fateful Samhain, years before, when I had claimed my throne.
Thomas Shepherd.
I fell back, my breath robbed from me.No,cried out the heart in my breast.No,cried the flesh that hungered for his touch: the hips he’d held, the throat he’d kissed.
I began to shake my head.
“Receive our gift,” the Horned One said, his voice as a tumbling of stone. “The Teind will not go unpaid this day.” It was not a request.
I cannot.
I knew what they asked of me, what theyallasked of me, not only the Wild Hunt. Faery hungered; Faery starved. Faery needed blood to survive, maybe past this very Samhain, maybe beyond the next few years.
The Horned One faced me, and almost I saw something in his eyes, a light like a corpse candle, flickering in their depths. “We answer to your need, Mistress, if not to your desire. Choose wisely, my queen.”
And the Hunters released Thomas, turned to ride away—to hunt down what dark victim, I could not say.
My shepherd king did not move.
Samhain would not last forever. The time for me to act was now.
Lyel’s words echoed through my head:A consort, a king, or someone the queen loves is the strongest and best!
A swarm of twinkling tarrans encircled Thomas’s brow, making of themselves a crown of light.
Run, my love. Get yourself to safety and forget what you have seen this night.But I could not say these words, unless I wanted my very people, my land, my very self, doomed.
And Thomas, beguiled, confused, and handsomer than I had ever seen him, took a step towards me.
Margaret. He needed Margaret. What had I said to Thomas before I left?Tell her to hold you closely and never let you go. I feared I’d spoke to no avail.
