20. Hath No Greater Love
He sat, staring intently at a small opening in the barrier hedge. There was a shimmer there that wasn’t supposed to be shimmering. He didn’t even look up as Dar joined him, growling softly.
*Mate comes?* Dar sent.
*Not my mate. Pack Sib.* was the reply.
*Acts like Mate.*
*Nia worries.*
*Told me to get you*
*I can’t right now.*
*Why?*
*Look there, by the rock. What do you see, Dar?*
Dar growled nervously and directed his gaze to where his friend was staring. His growl began to escalate into a louder threatening sound that broke off into a startled yip as his ear was nipped.
*Why Bear bite Dar?* he asked in an aggrieved tone.
*Because, whatever that is, it isn’t a threat to us. It smells familiar. Like Pack.* If Bear could have, he would have rolled his eyes.
*I don’t recognize it.*
*I knew you could speak English better than you do.*
*Isis can’t. So Dar pretends.*
*Not around me.*
A low, anxious whine interrupted and Bear heaved a heavy sigh just before both of them were literally swarmed by the attentions of Nia. Dar submitted almost sheepishly to her frantic greeting and licking while Bear half reared up and batted at her with his paws almost playfully. She yipped at him and he let her push him off of his feet, engaging her in a spirited growling sparring match that ended with her licking his ears as she lectured both him and Dar on being more careful as she wasn’t there to watch their backs. Bear let her go on for a few more minutes before sneezing at her and heaving to his feet for a good shake.
*Never mind that. Look, what do you see?* Bear directed her attention to the barrier hedge.
Nia grumped at him, but turned her attention to the hedge, testing the air with quivering nostrils.
*Draco?* she yipped. *Impossible!*
*Dar – I mean I have seen much that should be impossible since we have bonded with the young queen.* Dar remarked. *Who is Draco?*
*Was. Our leader until his death.* Bear replied. *Precious is his successor.*
*Ah.*
Nia ignored them and cautiously approached the shimmer. She carefully sniffed, hesitating to touch her nose to it. The shimmer seemed to pulse and she crow-hopped backwards with a yip of surprise. Bear and Dar watched with interest as she went forward again. This time, she touched first her nose, then licked at the shimmer. It seemed to pulse yet again, flowing in front of her, then to the hedge and under it through the hole they’d used to slip through when they’d gone to Khan’s aid. Nia didn’t hesitate and followed.
*Well, that tears it.* Bear murmured and quickly followed.
*This is a bad idea.* Dar growled and was right behind them.
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I paused in mid-stroke, distracted. It cost me a hard thump to the ribs as Devin got past my guard with a side kick. I grunted, grabbing his foot automatically and tossing him backwards.
“Stop.” I ordered in a harsh tone as he started to advance on me again, fireball already in my hand. He back peddled, startled. Behind him, Rhia came out of her tent as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown on her, Larl right behind her. She stopped dead at the sight of my witch fire.
“You felt it, too?” She stated.
“Yep.” I tamped down on my sudden nerves and let the witch fire fade, despite the instinctive desire to destroy something with it.
From somewhere in the woods, a howl of rage erupted, quickly echoed. Larl’s eyebrow raised. I didn’t even turn around, sensing the rock wolves approaching from behind me. I knew if I turned I’d see my baby girl, eyes glowing red fire and in full war mode. I didn’t know why, didn’t really want to know why, but didn’t hesitate to clap my hand into hers and run full tilt by her side, feeling her fingernails digging holes into my skin. I didn’t have to look to know that Rhia and Larl were right behind us. We ran, the rock wolves flowing around us.
As we reached the barrier hedge, Angel roared an incoherent word and a section of it was literally ripped up out of the ground and thrown aside. We flowed through the hole.
I didn’t have time to feel anything as I saw the scene not one-hundred yards from the hedge opening. Angel literally yanked me forward with her. I felt the tug on my shields and without hesitation, let them fall, giving her access to my magic. Rhia’s hand slapped into my free right palm as Larl lept forward, her sword drawn, screaming an enraged battle cry.
The deviants had a human adult male they were literally eating alive. Huddled a few yards away, Dar, Bear and Nia were holding off more of the deviants, the only thing standing between the horrors and a young woman curled protectively around what looked like a large duffel bag. I couldn’t even draw in a breath to scream as I witnessed what came next. My mind shut down instead as fire burned in my blood.
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.
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Bear feinted and lunged, snapping and snarling desperately. Dar and Nia worked seamlessly with him to keep the overwhelming numbers of the enemy at bay, but it wasn’t going to be enough. The shimmer appeared before them and time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl.
*Would you die for her?* Came the eerie, echoing sending. *To serve your Queen, would you die for her?*
The voice echoing in Bear’s head was Draco’s. He snarled and felt Nia press hard against his bleeding side.
*WOULD YOU DIE FOR HER?!?* Came the echoing roar in his mind
*YES!* Bear screamed back, unsurprised to hear Nia’s voice screaming in unison with his.
Time sped back to normal. Bear felt Nia’s muscles bunch and he surged forward with her as if they were one. Behind them, Dar howled in maddened grief and rage.
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I came back to myself, standing over the bodies of two of my oldest familiars. Someone was sobbing out a high keening sound and I realized belatedly it was me. Something warm and wet was dripping from my face. I swiped a hand at it, staring as it came away smeared with crimson. Around me, bodies were literally ripped apart. I drew in a deep shuddering breath and let it out again, choking on a heaving sob. I glanced around.
Angel, Rhia, Larl and the Rock wolves were standing in a defensive huddle a few paces behind me, the young woman ensconced within their ranks. Angel had an unreadable expression on her face while Rhia and Larl were both staring at me, white-faced with muted terror. I felt something bumping my hand almost frantically and looked down to see Dar nosing my hand. He was whining a peculiar hitching whine, almost as if he were sobbing right along with me. I dropped bonelessly to my knees and wrapped my arms around him.
*- couldn’t stop them! They said it was Draco! I should have stopped them!*
*Hush. Hush. It wasna yuir fault.* Devin’s brogue slipped into my mental voice as I hugged the small rock wolf. *Always more heart than brains. Donna cry, wee little wolf. ‘Tis honorable that they died in battle. Bluidy stupid, but honorable.*
Three shimmers suddenly appeared in front of us. I felt three cold noses nuzzling me affectionately. Dar suddenly sat on his haunches and threw his head up to howl in a heartbroken tone and the shimmers engulfed him. A moment later and he burrowed back into my arms.
*Yours.* he whimpered almost desperately.
*Mine.* I agreed and kissed his nose. *Let us see what they died for, mi Corazon.*
We stood and shuffled carefully toward the rest of them. For a moment, it looked as if Larl and Rhia would stop me, but Angel murmured something I couldn’t hear and they parted to let me crouch down before the girl.
She eyed me with wide green eyes. I instantly read her aura. Gray with muted silver and green. Someone who was once dark, but had turned to the light. Redeemable. I looked at the duffel bag.
“Show me.” I ordered. She pulled it to her protectively, her eyes hardening with resolve. “Show me or I’ll kill you now.”
Startled, she gazed at me as if re-evaluating me. Then she nodded and pulled the zipper open.
The duffel bag was a sort of hard sided affair, yet soft on the inside. I looked over the edge of the opening, then began to chuckle hoarsely.
Two baby ferrets blinked up at me from where they were curled up with a felifox, a kitten and what looked to be a nearly newborn baby.
“Yours?” I asked.
“No. Mark found them in an abandoned house. The mother had just died. He said he’d already let his son Donnie down, he wouldn’t let these down.” she replied.
“You could have left them.”
“They’re just babies! I couldn’t! It was like a compulsion! I . . . I guess they are mine now. Who else is going to look after them? Mark is dead.”
“We’d take them.”
“No. They’re my responsibility now. I can’t leave them. If I can just gain an audience with the rulers of Dragon’s Keep, I’ll beg for asylum.”
“What’s your name, Girl?”
“Kim. What’s yours?”
“Kat. Kat Mackenzie. So, what do you plan to say to the Queen of Dragon’s Keep?”
“I don’t know. That I’ll do anything to prove that I’ve changed. That I can take care of my babies. That I need help. I’ll do anything. Anything she tells me I have to do, just as long as my babies are safe. I’ll die if I can’t take care of them.”
“Are you willing to become a slave?”
“Yes!”
“Would you die for them?”
“Yes!”
I smiled grimly and looked up at Angel.
“Well, My Queen, what is your judgment?” I asked in an ironic tone. “Remember, ‘Hath no greater love than they who willingly lay down their lives’.”
Kim gasped, then immediately threw herself on her face in front of my daughter, babbling incoherently. Angel sighed heavily and stepped forward to touch the girl’s head.
“Stand up.” She ordered softly.
Kim stood. I was somewhat surprised to see she was quite short. Angel reached over and wiped her fingers down my face, then drew a sigil on the girl’s forehead with the blood.
“Seven years for each life sacrificed to protect you.” Angel said softly. “And seven years for each bond severed to bring my mother back. Twenty-one years will you serve. Try to escape, try to hurt, hinder or otherwise promote the human high council’s teachings and you will be executed with extreme prejudice.”
“I accept!” Kim cried out.
“Then, I give you to my mother as her slave to do with as she will.”
“Oh, thanks ever so much.” I snorted
“What would I do with her?” Angel replied with grim amusement.
“May be I should give her to Tremayne.”
“Don’t be cruel, Mother.”
I rolled my eyes and then looked at a confused Kim.
“Don’t worry. I don’t bite.” I said as gently as I could under the circumstances. “You’ll be well treated unless you betray us. Betray us and I’ll kill you myself, with no mercy. It won’t be a quick death, either. Are we clear on that?”
Kim nodded so hard, I thought she’d break her neck. I sighed and looked back up at Angel.
“Take her back to camp and check the baby. It shouldn’t be sleeping so deeply.” I sighed.
“I gave her something to make her sleep.” Kim spoke up meekly. “It was safer if she was quiet.”
“Hunh. You might have potential. Angel will check her and you over. Go.”
I waited until they were well under way before standing up to my full height. I gazed implacably at both Rhia and Larl.
“Well?” I asked quietly.
“It . . . it ripped them all to shreds!” Rhia blurted out with a hysterical edge to her voice. “Big, vicious . . . Bird!”
“That would be Shi’ahani.”
“Angel pulled us all back when she appeared. Kinda like that horror movie I saw at a human movie house once. The one where the alien comes bursting out of this guy’s chest; except no blood and guts. That’s inside you all the time?”
“Yep.” I shrugged.
“Hunh. Well, that explains where Angel got the War mage aspect from. It’s kinda scary.”
“Scary!?!” Rhia shrilled. “Did you see what it did!?!”
“It happens to be a she.” I sighed patiently. “I’m still me. I just host her. She normally just kind of hibernates until she’s needed. She was there when the twins were born. You saw her then, Rhi.”
“I saw you dying! I didn’t see that . . . that . . . Bird! I was too busy anchoring you!”
“I didn’t see it like that, either.” Larl shrugged. “It was more of an impression of a big don’t-fuck-with-me thing.”
“Ya know, for Fae, you two sure are whining little wussies.” My brother’s weayr voice caused me to look up. He was walking up behind them, making directly for me, bone handled silver dagger in one hand. Rhia spun on him, spluttering as Larl raised an eyebrow. “Go back to your camp. I’ve got this.”
Larl stared at him with a measuring gaze for a moment, then nodded and took Rhia’s hand, leading her, still spluttering about my ‘Bird’ back toward the hedge.
Tremayne stared at me, his eyes sweeping me from head to toe and back. Dar moved in front of me, head down, growling softly.
“Oh, stop that.” Tremayne snorted at him. “I’m not here to hurt her.”
“You thought I lost control?” I asked quietly.
“Ya think? What was your first clue? The bodies or the fact that you’re literally dripping buckets of blood?”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Tremayne. I’m not in the mood.”
“Well, neither am I. I had a hell of a time convincing Devin he did not want to cross that barrier to come after you when the land and everything in it literally went nuts. Quineld and her coven are out cold. The rest of those Fae are about ready to kill anything that moves and the dragons are yelping like scalded rats. Ian’s got his claws full.”
“So you gated here to do what, precisely?”
“Make sure you were ok. Kill you if She was out of control. Kill the host, kill the Phoenix spirit. It’s got no where else to go.”
“In theory. It could always take another host.”
“Not immediately. It would have to re-generate and that takes a lot of time.”
“I didn’t lose control of her.”
“No? What do you call it then?”
“Judgment.”
I turned away from him then, my shields up tight, trusting that Dar would warn me if need be. I walked stiffly back over to the bodies of Bear and Nia. Both were broken and bloodied, however, it seemed almost that they had been one entity, the way they lay together. They’d taken several of the feral humans with them before being overwhelmed. I looked up at a shimmer in the air. Two more joined it.
“I get it.” I rasped out, reaching up to touch the shimmers. “The baby. She’ll be Angel’s strong right hand someday. Like you were mine. Like Larl is Rhia’s. Kim is there to help teach her how to balance between dark and light; how to be gray. I get it. But you broke my heart, and Dar’s heart.”
The shimmers pulsed warmth at me and I felt Dar press against my leg. I sighed heavily.
“Peace, Draco.” I murmured. “I know. Dar and I will heal each other, in time. You should have let me know.”
Another pulse of warmth, phantom cold nose nuzzles, and the shimmers faded out. I sighed heavily, my hand going to Dar’s head, then I stepped back and called witch fire down on the bodies. I waited until I knew it was hot enough to leave nothing behind and then walked back to Tremayne.
“You look like a walking blood clot.” He snorted. The dagger was no longer in sight.
“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes at him. “You know, I think that Rhia is a bit freaked out.”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“You’re freaked out, too. Imagine that.”
“Dammit, Kat! I thought I was going to have to kill my only sister! How am I supposed to feel?”
“Gotcha. Thank you, by the way.”
“For what!?”
“Well, if She ever does get loose, I really don’t think there’s anyone else that would be able to get that close to me, much less be able to follow through with it. Could you see Angel taking care of it? Yeah, I didn’t think so. So, thanks.”
“I hate you.”
“Right back at you, Bro. Come on, I need to go get cleaned up. I’m sure there’ll be questions, too.”
“Gods help us. There’s not enough Tequila in the world for that right now.”
“Meh. I’d settle for a decent cup of coffee. I’m cold, stiff and feel like a hippogriff ran me over.”
“Walking blood clot.”
“Shut up.”
As we passed through the hole in the hedge, I heard the rustle that signaled it closing the gap and sighed heavily.
“Angel.” I muttered.
“Mom.” She replied quietly. “Pacifier?”
“Yeah, let’s go get the pacifiers.”
Her hand found mine, and despite the fact I was still covered in gore, her fingers curled into mine and she held on tight, not letting go.
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The Morgan, Queen of the Fae, Rhia of Sevenoaks . . . was shaken to the core.
“Bird . . . big . . . BIG Bird . . . not soft yellow canary . . . big *flaming* bird . . . “
Larl sat her down in a camp chair and told the guard to stop staring, go get the good chocolate for his Queen – NOW.
He bolted like a frightened doe.
Larl sat down and stared at her soul-bonded sister for a moment, then spoke. “She called it ‘Shi’ahani’ . . . “
Rhia shook her head, hard . . . “I KNOW what she called it, but do YOU know what that was?! A Phoenix Spirit! That she knows one name for the thing only makes it worse, in a way . . . Do you know what happened the last time I saw one of those? A thousand years I’ve gone and still wish I could forget that sight.”
She shuddered and took the mug from the guard who’d re-appeared . . . He was smart enough to make himself scarce again, quickly.
“They say the Host lost control of the Firebird and it destroyed him. Immolated him with most of the village. There wasn’t even ashes left, most of it was a glass crater. AND still is! No one has gone near the site of that village since, no animal – wild or domestic – can be taken near it, and the plant life even shrinks from the place.”
“Yes – and I was there too, recall. He’d had no training whatsoever and certainly did not have the steadying presence of Familiars to help ground him.”
“There IS that, still . . . to have had her call on it – that she felt she NEEDED to call on it in such a way . . . ” The Morgan sighed, “It’s frustrating at the very least – and terrifying if I think about it too closely. There’s not a Power on this planet that can control one if it escapes its Host, and only the death of the Host can even slow it down. I don’t want to even think about anyone needing to attempt that.”
“Well, we will have to see what happens next, won’t we? There was SOME reason they went beyond the Barrier in the first place, and that female we rescued had damned well better be worth it after all is said and done.” Larl tipped a helping of the chocolate liqueur into the steaming mug her Queen and sister held.
The Morgan gave her a look that said Larl may not like what she was going to suggest, but she was going to say it anyway.
“Just have the Elf-shot ready if that thing ever looks to erupt again. That’s the only way I can see to save her life, and that of every living thing on this side of the Barrier.”
Larl nodded, once.
