Page 119 of Throne of Dreams
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“They’re only mortals!”Maeve screamed even as three attacked her head on. She blocked two and kicked the other, refusing to strike them down. “Don’t hurt them!”
A flash of silver darted before her eyes and Saoirse rolled to the ground before jumping back to her feet.
“If we don’t kill them,” she shouted in return, using her sword to fend two of them off, “they’ll kill us.”
Agony ripped her heart in half. They were innocents. Captives stolen against their will only to be used as weapons in a war that was not their own.
“Orders,moh Ríenna!” Tethra bellowed from somewhere off to her right.
Maeve reared back, slamming her elbow into one of the creatures, then shoving another to the ground. She stole a fleeting glance at Tiernan.
The look in his eyes told her there was no other way.
“Make it swift!” she cried out. “Do not make them suffer but kill them. Kill them all!”
Darkness swarmed them, attempting to smother the burning light of her sword. She wielded it with one hand and yanked her Aurastone from its sheath, lashing out at the creature ambling toward her, snapping its jaw. She pierced its chest with her dagger, and the dark fae turned to dust, vanishing without a trace.
Her gut clenched. These were not wicked fae creatures under Parisa’s rule. These were mortal souls. The lives of innocents. And she wasdestroyingthem. They would never know a life after this, there would be no eternal paradise awaiting them in Maghmell, no uncertainty of the in between in the Ether. There was nothing left for them. They would simply cease to exist.
All around her, the roar of the Furies clashed with the screams of their victims. Human screams. The sound of it was enough to splinter her heart. A smaller creature, with eyes of murky ink and rows of dagger-like tiny teeth, lunged for her throat. This one was a child. Maeve thrust her Aurastone directly into its heart, and a harrowing cry tore from her lips. Her vision swam and she blinked the tears away, letting them slide down her cheeks as she ducked low, avoiding a set of claws taking aim for her chest.
Flashes of silver stole across her vision. Bolts of violet unraveled like violent ribbons, extinguishing every dark fae in their wake. And still they continued to come. It was as though Fearghal had a never-ending supply of mortal captives in his arsenal. All around her, the fighting raged. She stabbed and parried, sliced and killed, and each life she took left a smear of remorse upon her heart.
“Fight me!” she screamed, knowing Fearghal could hear her. “Show yourself, you bastard!”
The horde of darkness pressed into them, cornering her, Tiernan, Saoirse, and even the Furies, into a wall. There was no way out.
Fearghal’s heinous laughter caused the ceiling to shudder and the ground to quake. “Not until you kill every one of these precious mortals you so foolishly care for, Maeve.”
Blinding rage pulsed through her. No more. She would endure no more. Her magic swam inside her, scraping and raking, frenzied and wild. When she released her wrath upon this place, the world would know her name.
“Back!” She stormed forward, shoving past Tiernan and Balor when they attempted to protect her, to shield her from the onslaught of dark fae. “Stand back!” she commanded, her voice laced with the promise of death.
Tiernan yanked Saoirse backward, dragging her out of the way. The Furies fell back behind Maeve.
“Goddess above,” Maeve whispered into the fray, “forgive me.”
Power filled her, overwhelmed her. She called to the shadows of darkness swirling around them, beckoned to them, twisted them until they took the shape of a thousand blades. The darkness belonged to her. She owned it. Controlled it. Magic funneled through her as she imbued the monster of night with its own life force. Tendrils of shade crawled along the walls and floors, slithering like venomous snakes ready to strike. The shadow blades she created positioned themselves like an army, each tip an extension of her hand, and the dark fae shrank back.
From behind her, Saoirse breathed, “Seven hells.”
Maeve’s blood thrummed. Magic throbbed. She raised her chin, ever defiant. “Attack.”
At once, the darkness obeyed her command, piercing the dark fae in one vicious assault. Screams exploded, echoing up into the furthest reaches of the cavern. She took them all, she killed them all. In less time than it took to breathe, she vanquished a hundred lives, she devastated a hundred souls. A cloud of dust bloomed and the silence that followed left her skin pebbled in goosebumps.
She released her magic and her sword of sunlight burst brighter than ever, vanquishing the night.
The soft click of boots against stone drew her gaze up to the far end of the dungeon.
“Well done.” Fearghal strolled forward, and Maeve’s heart stilled inside the constricted wall of her chest.
His copper hair fell to his shoulders now, a stark contrast to the blackened veins running up and down his body. One of his horns was missing, she realized, the area on top of his head where it should’ve been was charred, like it had been burned off. Likely one of Parisa’s punishments.
His eyes locked onto her and with each step he took, memories of the cell she’d been locked into deep beneath the underground of the Spring Court slammed into her mind. The metallic scent of her blood lingering in the air. The way his hot breath had coated her skin right before he sculpted her body with his blade dipped in nightshade. The way he smiled when his dagger scored under her breast and around her nipple.
Maeve’s breath lodged somewhere deep inside her chest. She would not go back there; she would not return to that seventh circle of hell. He tried to break her once before, and he would not be given the same opportunity again.
