Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
But they took Siobhan.
“Stay here.” I climb shakily to my feet. The strange mist that obscured the ceiling and walls is fading; I can see the door now.
“Nox!” Bowen has his arms around Evelyn. “It’s too dangerous.”
“They took Siobhan.”
“She went willingly,” Lizzie says.
I shake my head. “No, she fucking didn’t.” I exchange a look with Bastian. He was right when he said she was saying goodbye. This was the outcome Siobhan knew would happen, and this is why she didn’t want Maeve to blow the horn. I’ve listened to Evelyn talk about the myths surrounding the Wild Hunt. Some folks they sweep up are deposited elsewhere. Some ride with them forever.
I have a feeling I know which fate awaits Siobhan.
He rises as well. “I’m coming with you.”
I want to argue, but there’s no time. We stagger our way through the door, the air so cold that my breath ghosts the space before my lips. The voices of the Cŵn Annwn are fading, a great sound rising in its place. It takes my exhausted mind a few steps to place it.
Screaming.
Bastian picks up his pace, and I match him without hesitation. We burst past two spatters of blood on the walls, but don’t see a single soul until we shove through the doors and out onto the street. There’s no point in subterfuge now; no one is paying us the least bit of attention.
Lyari is a relatively flat island, and the city itself is nestled in between two small hills on either side. I catch sight of riotous clouds overhead, but I can’t see anything. “We need to get higher.”
“We need to save her.”
“We can’t do that if we don’t know where she is.” I don’t wait for Bastian to argue further. I grab two fistfuls of air and shove it down, propelling myself up onto the roof. I put too much power behind it and nearly topple off before I find my footing.
When I see what the Wild Hunt is doing to the city, I almost wish I had fallen. It’s…massive. Beyond comprehension. The only hunting parties I’ve seen are among ships, but I thought I had an idea of what a hunt on land might be. I was wrong. This is no gathering of dozens of warriors, eldritch or otherwise; this is a horde.
It sweeps through the streets of Lyari like a tsunami, mist and hounds and warriors on horses. Some of them look similar to the creature that answered Siobhan’s call. Some of them are more humanoid…and some significantly less. As they ride away from us, I catch sight of a hunter that seems to be made entirely of tentacles and wet laughter.
“Do you see her?” Bastian calls from the ground.
I shake my head slowly. “There are hounds, but I don’t know which one is Siobhan.” Or Morrigan, for that matter. The giant beasts dance around and under the hooves of equally giant horses with glowing eyes, whose every exhale seems to add to the mist following the group.
“We need to go after them!”
How? Even if we could find her, how could we possibly fight this?
Despair rises in me, so strong that I choke on it. I’ve barely come to terms with the reality of wanting—of loving. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. If we were on a suicide mission, then we would go out together, martyrs to the greater good. She wasn’t supposed to sacrifice everything and leave us to pick up the pieces.
I love Bastian—I don’t think I ever truly stopped, for all that it turned to hate for a time—but I love Siobhan, too. One is not a replacement for the other. The relationships are similar, but not identical. How am I supposed to go on when half of my heart now rides with the Wild Hunt?
“Nox.”
“Coming.” The descent is just as chaotic and rushed as the ascent. I hit the ground too hard and my knees buckle, but Bastian is there to grab my arm, already rushing us in the wake of the Hunt.
There’s no way we should be able to close the distance, but magic is a strange thing and sometimes the rules of reality bend around it. That’s the only explanation for our reaching the docks seconds behind the Hunt. Bastian almost keeps going, but I grab a fistful of his shirt and yank him to a stop before he can enter the mist churning around the Cŵn Annwn—the true Cŵn Annwn. “You’ll join them.”
“You don’t know that!”
Yes, I do. I don’t know how, but I just know. I take a step back, even though it’s pure agony to put more distance between us. The Hunt surges from one ship to the next, sending up screams and cries with each pause. I can’t tell if they’re killing their victims or sweeping them into the Hunt itself. Possibly a combination of both.