“Okay,” Hunter said, “I think it’s time you explain yourself.”
The goblin paused in his headlong flight and took a few steps closer, his lips turned into a familiar sneer. “You really are a moron, Prince.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who fell for the ‘I’m too weak to be any danger’ act.”
“Exactly.”
“Huh?”
“See if you can work this out: I guard the Queen. You killed the Queen. I was supposed to be guarding her when you killed her. Therefore . . .”
When he put it that way, Hunter couldn’t help but understand. “Therefore you’re headed for execution.”
Bane clapped, his lips still curled away from his teeth. “Give the boy a gold star.”
“And you’re helping me escape why?”
“Let’s get over the border, and then we can continue this discussion, eh Boyo? Too risky to stand still here.” He turned his back without awaiting an answer, plunging on through the underbrush.
Hunter would have loved nothing better than to head in the opposite direction, but the only way to evade the Unseelie patrols was to head into Seelie territory. Not that the patrols wouldn’t cross the border if necessary—hardly a month went by when there weren’t at least a couple of skirmishes along the border—but it wouldn’t be their first choice. Reluctantly, Hunter followed Bane once again.
About fifteen minutes later, they broke through the thick Unseelie forest into Seelie territory. Bane continued to run until they’d put a healthy distance between themselves and the border, stopping finally in a small clearing bathed in moonlight.
Hunter was winded and still weak from the torture. His lacerated feet throbbed with every step. When Bane came to a stop, Hunter bent over and put his hands on his knees, sides heaving. The goblin did not give him much time to recover his breath, however.
Hunter straightened when Bane drew his knife.
“Let’s have it out, shall we Prince?” the goblin said, and Hunter finally realized why Bane had helped him escape. They’d both eagerly anticipated the day the Queen would take the muzzles off them, and since the Queen was temporarily dead, that day had finally arrived. Hunter would have been much happier about the idea if the odds weren’t so heavily weighted in Bane’s favor.
“Let’s see: you have a big knife. I’m unarmed. You’re fresh and strong. I’m weakened by torture. And, oh yes, my hands are shackled together. With iron shackles, no less. I guess this means you’re too much of a coward to risk a fair fight.”
Bane laughed, though there was a bitter edge to that laughter. “If the Queen’s forces find me—and I have no doubt she’ll send them hunting for me as soon as she’s able—I will die in far more pain than you just suffered. But, see, I know that’s not how I’m destined to die. So I figure this unfair advantage of mine ain’t gonna do me any good in the end.”
Hunter stared at the goblin. He’d known Bane was serious when he’d first mentioned his conviction that Hunter was fated to kill him, but he’d never guessed he’d take it this far. “So because you think it’s your fate to die by my hand, you helped me escape the Unseelie Court when you could have just saved your own hide, and now you’re going to fight me when you could just walk away. That’s the textbook definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Bane shook his head. “You don’t get it, but by now that shouldn’t surprise me. Let me explain in little bitty words so you can understand. If I walk away, they’ll catch me eventually. They catch me, I die, and it’s ugly. So instead, I bring you with me. We fight, I die quick. Now do you get it?”
It made a perverted sort of sense. “If you’re so eager for me to kill you, unlock my shackles and give me a knife. I’m happy to oblige.”
Bane snarled at him. “I have every intention of taking you with me. And I’m sick of talking.”
The goblin charged.
Hunter barely managed to deflect Bane’s blade with the chain between his hands. Sparks flew, lighting the night. Bane growled deep in his throat and tried another thrust. Hunter dodged, wishing he had his own knife. He could only defend for so long before he would have to find some way to attack. He backed away, crouched and ready for action. Bane followed, feinting.
“Now who’s the coward?” the goblin taunted as Hunter continued to back up.
Hunter didn’t answer, his eyes fixed on the blade, waiting for Bane to make another charge. He didn’t have long to wait. He met the knife with his chained hands once more, twisting the chain around the blade and yanking hard while snapping a kick at Bane’s mid-section. Goblins were not as weak around the middle as humans, but Bane nevertheless tried to avoid the kick. The distraction cost him his knife. Hunter would have liked to grab it himself, but as he tried to untwist the chain, the knife fell to the ground—narrowly missing his foot. Then Bane slammed into him and Hunter went down hard.
Claws dug deeply into his shoulders, and Bane’s foul breath washed over his face. The goblin bared his formidable fangs, and Hunter barely got his hands up in time to stop those fangs from tearing out his throat. Hunter tried to shove the chain into Bane’s face, but Bane quickly let go of his shoulders, claws raking through his flesh, to grab Hunter’s arms and hold them back. Hunter shuddered in revulsion as drool dripped onto his face.
In a battle of pure strength, Bane would win, so Hunter rolled, dragging Bane along with him. Bane couldn’t control the roll without letting go of Hunter’s arms and risking contact with the iron. Hunter ended up on top, trying to use his weight as leverage to get the chain around Bane’s throat. Bane apparently didn’t like the odds and tossed Hunter off of him.
Hunter rolled sharply to the side to avoid the goblin’s pounce. When the roll came to a stop, he put his hand down to push himself to his feet.
His hand came down on the hilt of Bane’s knife. His fingers curled around it even as a strange chill passed over him. He’d put no stock in Bane’s talk of fate, but happening upon the knife like this was almost too good to be true. But truly Bane couldn’t know what was going to happen. That would suggest that neither Bane nor Hunter had any free will in the matter, and Hunter refused to accept that. Besides, if the Queen really could foresee the future, Hunter never would have been able to kill her. The fact that he’d rolled in just the right way for his hand to come down on the knife was just a coincidence.
Hunter brandished the knife as Bane crouched for another spring. Bane snarled loudly, flexing his claws.
“Let’s see if I can give you something to remember me by,” he said, then charged again, claws extended.
Hunter jabbed with the knife as Bane’s claws slashed across his forearm, leaving deep furrows. The knife sank into the goblin’s mid-section, and he howled. Hunter jerked the knife out and moved away, crouched and ready in case Bane should come at him again. But the goblin had fallen to his knees and now clutched his belly. Blood gushed from the wound. Bane tried to stand up again, launching himself in Hunter’s direction. Hunter stepped back, and Bane collapsed before he’d crossed even half the distance between them.
Hunter bent and wiped the blade against a patch of grass, cleaning the goblin blood off as best he could. His shoulders and forearm burned and stung from the deep scratches, but after all the pain he’d suffered, these wounds were barely an annoyance.
Turning his back on Bane, he got his bearings and headed off toward the Faerie circle that would take him back to the mortal world.
“No!” Bane yelled. “Wait!”
Hunter turned and saw the goblin, still clutching his oozing belly, trying to crawl after him. When he saw he had Hunter’s attention, Bane collapsed back into the grass, his ribs heaving with his effort.
“They can heal this,” Bane said. “If they catch me. You’ve got to finish what you started.”
Hunter stared at the goblin incredulously. “Oh do I? It seems to me I can do whatever I please. And it pleases me to walk away.” To hell with his supposed destiny! Almost as long as he could remember, he’d
wanted to kill Bane. Now that the chance presented itself, he didn’t have it in him to kill him in cold blood. In anger, he could have done it. But not like this. Once more he turned his back.
“You can’t leave me like this!”
Hunter told himself to keep walking, but almost against his will he came to a stop.
“You know what they’ll do to me if they catch me alive,” the goblin said. “I know you hate me, but you wouldn’t condemn me to that fate. So kill me. You’ve wanted to ever since I did your dear daddy, so just go ahead and do it.”
Hunter approached his wounded nemesis, a war raging within him. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and bleed to death before they find you.”
“No. You’ll kill me. I told you, I know how it ends.”
Hunter snorted. “Hate to tell you this, but you’re wrong.”
Bane shook his head. He was grimacing in pain, but Hunter told himself he had no pity in his heart for this creature’s pain.
“You don’t understand, Hunter.” Hunter actually started at hearing his name in Bane’s voice. “We’re Unseelie, you and me. We don’t get a choice in this shit.”
“No!” Hunter snapped. “I believe in free will. There’s no such thing as fate.”
“There is if you’re Unseelie. Even now, we are the Queen’s creatures, both of us. She is the Court, don’t you see? We can’t decide our own fates independent of her any more than our fingers and toes can decide theirs independent of us.”
“If she’s so all-seeing, then why is she dead right now?”
“She can’t see herself,” Bane answered, rolling his eyes like it should have been obvious. “She must not have seen why we were fighting when she foresaw my death, but she did foresee it.”
That Bane believed every word was obvious. Maybe he was even right about some of it—it was true the Queen’s ability to know what her minions were up to was uncanny. But did that truly mean she was capable of seeing the future?
Hunter felt a strange smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as the puzzle worked itself out in his mind. “She can see the future of the creatures of the Unseelie Court,” he said. “But she can’t see her own, and she can’t see anyone who isn’t really Unseelie. Maybe what all this means is that I’m not really a part of the Unseelie Court at all.”
For the first time, he saw a flicker of genuine worry in Bane’s eyes. “What could be more Unseelie than condemning someone to death by torture?”
“Nice try. But you richly deserve it.”
Bane’s eyes closed and he lay still, one clawed hand digging into the grass while the other lay clapped over the wound. Hunter couldn’t help noticing that the bleeding seemed to have slowed. He told himself to get the hell out of here. He remembered the pain he’d suffered at Bane’s hands, remembered how much the goblin had gloated and enjoyed it. He held in his mind the image of his father’s anguished face as lash after lash fell. If ever a creature deserved a painful death more than Bane, Hunter had never heard of him.
He forced a step backward, then another. Bane opened his eyes and stared at him. The goblin offered no further persuasion, save for that stare.
Damn it! Hunter was not Unseelie! He had free will, could do whatever he wanted. All he had to do to prove that to himself was walk away.
Hunter swallowed hard, feeling something akin to panic. What would Kiera say if he told her he’d allowed his nemesis to be slowly tortured to death? Would she be impressed with this proof that he was not Unseelie?
The answer was obvious.
Hunter uttered a series of curses as he bent to retrieve the knife. Bane let out a loud sigh of relief. Hunter halted just out of reach.
“What guarantee do I have that you’re not going to attack me? Looks like the bleeding’s slowing down. You probably have more strength than you’re letting on.”
Bane shrugged and struggled up into a sitting position, grimacing in pain. “I won’t attack you, Prince. I’m ready to go. But if you want assurances . . .” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys, tossing them at Hunter’s feet. “Take the shackles off and give them to me. I’ll put them on if it’ll make you get on with it.”
Hunter bent to pick up the keys. He unlocked the manacles, gratefully letting them drop to the ground at his feet, and then turned to the goblin. He waited for the surge of hatred he felt every time he set eyes on the creature, but it wouldn’t come. Bane was a goblin, and he did what goblins do. What was the use in hating the fire for burning you?
And in letting go of his hatred, Hunter realized he had more than two choices in this scenario.
“Tell you what, Bane,” he said, “I’ll just leave this knife of yours right here.” He jammed the blade into the ground. “What you do with it after I’m gone is no business of mine.”
“B-but . . . The Queen’s prophecy . . . You can’t just leave me.”
Hunter smiled as the burden of his birthright suddenly slipped off his shoulders. “She lied to you, Bane. She might be able to see you, but she can’t see me, because I’m not Unseelie. She told you I would kill you because she wanted you to hate me, and because she didn’t want anyone to know she couldn’t see me. She tricked all of us into believing I was a part of the Unseelie Court when in truth I’m a free man.”
Bane looked almost comically perplexed as Hunter walked away.
Hunter managed to walk maybe two or three hundred yards before five Daoine Sidhe warriors stepped out from behind the trees aiming silver-tipped arrows at his heart.
Chapter 17
Kiera glanced at her watch for about the hundredth time. It was nearing the deadline she had set for Hunter’s safe return, and there’d been no sign of him yet. Maybe her assumption that the Unseelie forces could not resist this deal had been wrong. She ground her teeth and ordered herself not to give up hope.
She had spent the first hour or two of her wait parked in front of the window, watching the goblins who guarded the house. One of them had trotted off to take her offer to the Queen, but the four who remained looked formidable enough. Conan finally persuaded her to leave her post, and he and her mother tried to keep her from brooding. They met with only limited success.
Now, almost twenty-four hours later, Kiera sat alone in the upstairs den, a cup of tea clutched in her hands as she stared out the window once more. The full moon had risen just after sunset and hung low over the city. The moonlight had ill effects on the goblins’ glamour, and every once in a while when Kiera looked at them she’d catch a glimpse of fangs and claws and gray skin. Once more she glanced at her watch, her eyes filming over with tears as hope slowly died.
A soft knock at the door behind her snapped her out of the gloom and she turned to see her mom standing in the doorway, her face full of gentle sadness.
“It was worth a try, huh Mom?” Kiera asked, glad that her voice came out steadier than she felt.
Her mom came to stand behind her chair, putting her hands on Kiera’s shoulders. “You did everything you could, dear. There are just some things in the world you have no control over. This is one of them. But we’re not going to give up. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
Kiera closed her eyes. Did Hunter still have life? She’d been so sure the goblins would give in to her demands . . . But if Hunter was already dead, then they couldn’t, even if they wanted to. Her heart felt like a lump of coal in her chest.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kiera caught sight of a group of men on the street below. Three of them, walking casually down the sidewalk. She didn’t know what it was about them that caught her eye, but once she’d turned to look at them, she found it hard to drag her eyes away.
“Uh-oh,” her mother whispered.
“What?” Kiera asked, still watching the three men. The group of goblins were moving swiftly away from the house and the approaching men.
“Those are Daoine Sidhe. Your father must have gotten word of the situation.”
“You don’t think Conan . . .?”
&nbs
p; Her mom shook her head. “No. He really wanted to send a message to Finvarra, but I talked him out of it. He wouldn’t have done it behind my back. I don’t know how they found out. Maybe they captured a goblin and it told them.”
Kiera would have liked to think having her father’s men chase the goblins away was an improvement on her situation, but she wasn’t so sure.
“They’re going to try to take me to Faerie by force, aren’t they?”
Her mom looked in equal parts grim and stubborn. “They can try.” Then some of the fight drained from her. “Of course, it’s possible that going to Faerie is your best option.” Her eyes sparkled with tears, as if it physically hurt her to admit the possibility.
Kiera couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
“You want Finvarra to protect me? The man who raped you and doesn’t give a damn that I exist?”
“Oh, he gives a damn, all right. Just not for the right reasons. You know how I feel about him, but I love you way more than I hate him. He can never love you, but he can protect you. I don’t want you to go, and I’m certainly not going to let him drag you there against your will. But it’s your decision to make, not mine.”
The Daoine Sidhe had arrived at the door. One of them knocked loudly.
“I’m not going to Faerie,” Kiera said firmly.
“But—”
“No. We’ll figure something else out. I’m not going to live as my father’s prisoner for my whole life.” Which, she realized with a shock that practically made her dizzy, would probably be forever if she went to Faerie. She couldn’t very well live in Faerie without eating or drinking, and yet if she ate or drank, she would become immortal, like Hunter. Trapped for all eternity and condemning her child to the same fate.
There was another knock on the door, this one louder.
“It was Hunter’s last wish,” Kiera’s mom said gently, reluctantly and Kiera’s heart clenched in her chest. “In his letter to me, he asked me to see you and the baby safely to Faerie if worse came to worst.”