Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(108)

Five horses stood in the clearing. Emma recognized one as Windspear, Kieran's mount, who he had ridden into battle with Malcolm. He whinnied when he caught sight of Kieran, and kicked at the sky.

"This is what the phouka promised me," Mark said in a low voice. He stood behind Emma, his eyes fixed on Gwyn and the horses. "That if I came to Faerie, I would ride with the Wild Hunt again."

Emma reached out and squeezed his hand. At least for Mark, the phouka's promise had come true without a bitter sting in its tail. She hoped the same for Julian and Cristina. 

Cristina was approaching a red roan, which skittishly kicked at the dirt. She murmured softly to the horse until it calmed, and swung herself up onto its back, reaching to stroke the horse's neck. Julian pulled himself onto a black mare whose eyes were an eerie green. He looked unfazed. Cristina's eyes were glowing with delight. She met Emma's gaze and grinned as if she could barely contain herself. Emma wondered how long Cristina must have dreamed of riding with a faerie host.

She hung back, waiting to hear Gwyn call her name. Why were there only five horses, not six? She got her answer when Mark swung himself up onto Windspear and reached down to pull Kieran up after him. The elf-bolt around Mark's throat gleamed in the multicolored starlight.

Nene came up to Windspear then, and reached for Mark's hands, ignoring Kieran. Emma couldn't hear what she was whispering to him, but there was deep pain on her face; Mark's fingers clung to hers for a moment before he released them. Nene turned and went back into the hill.

Silent, Kieran settled himself into place behind Mark, but he didn't touch the other boy.

Mark half-turned in his seat. "Are you worried?" he asked Kieran.

Kieran shook his head. "No," he said. "Because I am with you."

Mark's face tightened. "Yes," he said. "You are."

Beside Emma, the Queen laughed softly. "So many lies in just three words," she said. "And he did not even say 'I love you.' "

A dart of anger went through Emma. "You would know lies," she said. "In fact, if you ask me, the biggest lie the Fair Folk have ever told is that they don't tell them."

The Queen drew herself up. She seemed to be looking down at Emma from a great height. The stars wheeled behind her, blue and green, purple and red. "Why are you angry, girl? I have offered you a fair bargain. Everything you might desire. I have given you fair hosting. Even the clothes on your back are Faerie clothes."

"I don't trust you," Emma said flatly. "We bargained with you because we had no choice. But you have manipulated us every step of the way-even the dress I'm wearing is a manipulation."

The Queen arched an eyebrow.

"Besides," Emma said, "you allied yourself with Sebastian Morgenstern. You helped him wage the Dark War. Because of the war, Malcolm got the Black Volume and my parents died. Why shouldn't I blame you?"

The Queen's eyes raked Emma, and now Emma could see in them what the Queen had been at pains to hide before: her anger, and her viciousness. "Is that why you have set yourself as the protector of the Blackthorns? Because you could not save your parents, you will save them, your makeshift family?"

Emma looked at the Queen for a long moment before she spoke. "You bet your ass it is," she said.

Without another glance at the ruler of the Seelie Court, Emma stalked off toward the horses of the Hunt.

* * *

Julian had never much liked horses, though he'd learned to ride them, as most Shadowhunters did. In Idris, where cars didn't work, they were still the main form of transportation. He'd learned on a crabby pony that kept blowing out its sides and darting under low-hanging branches, trying to knock him off.

The horse Gwyn had given him had a dark look in its ghastly green eyes that didn't bode much better. Julian had braced himself for a lurching plunge upward, but when Gwyn gave the order, the horse simply glided up into the air like a toy lifted on a string.

Julian gasped out loud with the shock of it. He found his hands plunging into the horse's mane, gripping hard, as the others shot up into the air around him-Cristina, Gwyn, Emma, Mark and Kieran. For a moment they hovered, shadows under the moonlight.



       
         
       
        

Then the horses shot forward. The sky blurred above them, the stars turning to streaks of shimmering, multicolored paint. Julian realized that he was grinning-truly grinning, the way he rarely had since he was a child. He couldn't help it. Buried in everyone's soul, he thought as they spun forward through the night, must be the yearning desire to fly.