Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(91)

Emma and Cristina walked close together. Julian was in front, letting Erec guide them. Mark still felt uneasiness. It seemed as if they had gotten away too easily. For the King of the Unseelie Court to have let them go, and to have them take his favorite son . . .

"Where are the others?" Erec asked as the trees thinned out and the sky, multicolored in all its glory, became visible. "Your friends?"

"Friends?" Mark said, in a puzzled tone.

"The archers," said Erec. "Those flaming arrows in the Court-clever, I'll grant you. We wondered how you would cope with weapons once we took your angel powers away."



       
         
       
        

"How did you do that?" Mark asked. "Did you unhallow all this land?"

"That wouldn't make a difference," said Emma. "Runes work even in demon realms. This is something stranger."

"And the blight," said Mark. "What is the meaning of the blighted land? It is everywhere in the Unseelie Lands, like cancer in a sick body."

"As if I would speak of it," snapped Erec. "And it is no use threatening me-it would be worth my life to tell you."

"Believe me, I'm tired of threatening you myself," said Julian.

"Then let me go," said Erec. "How long do you plan to keep me? Forever? For that is how long you'd have to use me for protection to keep my father and his knights from finding you and cutting your throats."

"I said I was tired of threatening you, not that I was going to stop doing it," said Jules, tapping the knife blade. They'd come to the edge of the forest, where the trees ended and fields began. "Now, which way?"

Erec set off into the field, and they followed. Kieran was leaning more heavily on Mark. His face was very pale in the moonlight. The stars picked out the blue and green in his hair-his mother had been an ocean faerie, and a little of the shimmering loveliness of water remained in the colors of Kieran's hair and eyes.

Mark's arm curved around him unconsciously. He was angry at Kieran, yes, but here in Faerie, under the brilliant polychromatic stars, it was hard not to remember the past, not to think of all the times he'd clung to Kieran for warmth and companionship. How it had been just them, and he had thought perhaps it always would be. How he'd thought himself lucky that someone like Kieran, a prince, and beautiful, would ever look at him.

Kieran's whisper was a light caress against Mark's neck. "Windspear."

Windspear was Kieran's horse, or had been. He had come with him from the Court when Kieran had joined the Hunt.

"What about him? Where is he?"

"With the Hunt," said Kieran, and coughed, hard. "He was a gift from Adaon, when I was very young."

Mark had never before met Kieran's half brothers, the dozens of princes by different mothers who vied for the Unseelie Throne. Adaon, he knew from Kieran's tales, was one of the kinder ones. Erec was the opposite. He had been brutal to Kieran for most of his life. Kieran rarely spoke of him without anger.

"I thought I heard his hoofbeats," Kieran said. "I hear them still."

Mark listened. At first he heard nothing. His hearing was not as sharp as Kieran's or any true faerie's, at least not when his runes weren't working. He had to strain his ears to finally hear the sound. It was hoofbeats, but not Windspear's. Not any one horse's. This was a thunder of hoofbeats, dozens of them, coming from the forest. 

"Julian!" he cried.

There was no keeping the panic from his voice; Jules heard it and turned, fast, his grip on Erec loosening. Erec tore away, exploding into motion. He streaked across the field, his black cloak flying behind him, and plunged into the forest.

"And he was such awesome company, too," Emma muttered. "All that 'Nephilim, you will die in a welter of your own blood' stuff was really refreshing." She paused. She had heard the horses. "What's that-?"

Cortana seemed to fly into her hand. Julian was still holding his dagger; Cristina had reached for her balisong.

"The King's cavalry," said Kieran, with surprising calm. "You cannot fight them."

"We must run," Mark said. "Now."

No one argued. They ran.

They tore through the field, leaped a stone wall on the far side, Mark half-carrying Kieran over. The ground had begun to tremble by then with the force of distant hoofbeats. Julian was swearing, a low steady stream of curses. Mark guessed he didn't get to swear all that much back at the Institute.

They were moving fast, but not fast enough, unless they could find more woods, some kind of cover. But nothing was visible in the distance, and looking up at the stars told Mark little. He was exhausted enough that they dizzied him. Half his strength felt as if it were going to Kieran: not just dragging him along but willing him upright.