Laughing as they brought their feet down upon the Sidhe, crushing them beneath legs as thick as trees. Moss grew off their backs, fading into thin black hairs that trailed up their necks and stopped just below their heads. The cyclops’ tongue protruded from his open mouth, ready to catch his next prey and make a morsel out of him.
I turned away, determined not to dwell on the fact that my father had never been given the privilege of meeting my mate. He’d never know what it was to see me happy, to know that the love he could never hold for himself had rested within my arms.
That she would do it all over again, and that I would do whatever it took to make sure that was our norm.
The walkway was smooth until it dropped off the side, plunging into the depths below. The valley was filled with smoke, the result of the fires burning to keep the prison warm. It was too hot, nearly suffocating as I made my way to the crude steps carved into the cliff face. The rocks shifted as I stepped down them, hurrying as quickly as I dared and only casting a brief glance over the edge.
Mab waited at the bottom, turning her pale face to look up at me as I continued down the steps. She’d summoned me to do my duty, to deliver the souls of her prisoners into the afterlife, but I hadn’t stopped to consider who she might have housed in the worst part of her prison.
There was no iron down here, nothing to prevent a Fae from escaping. The cells found in this part of Tar Mesa were intended for the lesser beings, the ones who weren’t strong enough to escape regular shackles and chains.
The bodies of Mab’s latest slaughter lay spread throughout the ante chamber, scattered around the fire at the center. The dirt floor had long since turned to mud, the blood of her victims soaking into the ground beneath my feet as I stepped off the last of the stone steps.
There were nearly a dozen dead, but the crying from the narrow passage told me that the cells were still far from empty.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Mab said, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. I didn’t know why she bothered. We both knew she couldn’t see past the cloud of smoke that lingered at the mouth of the valley. “This wouldn’t have been necessary if that mate of yours wasn’t so infuriatingly good.”
“My mate would never have wanted this,” I snapped, sighing as I realized where Mab had found the humans to slaughter. They were some of what remained of the group who joined us on our journey, what remained of Adelphia’s companions and those who had welcomed Estrella to join them in their revelry before the Veil fell.
The children of the witches who had left to try to find her when Brann had stolen her from the rebellion in the night.
“Exactly! Her humanity makes her weak when she could be powerful beyond our wildest dreams. Instead, she worries over the lives of creatures that will die in the blink of an immortal eye. Their lives are so short, nothing in the wheel of time. Why does she care what happens to these irrelevant creatures?” Mab asked, pressing the toe of a black boot against the hand of the closest corpse. The man didn’t twitch, his throat ripped out by Mab’s shadows, the gaping hole still bleeding.
Mab’s undertaker waited against the wall, leaning against the stone and holding the three-pronged pitchfork he would use to shove the corpses into the flames the moment I left with their souls. There would be no careful burial, no return to the earth for those who died in this place.
It was perhaps the worst of all of Mab’s crimes against them.
Drawing my coin purse from my pocket, I pulled two pieces of gold out and squatted beside the first corpse. The man stared at the ceiling, his eyes blank and unseeing as I deposited the first coin onto his eye, pressing it deeper into the socket so that it might stay long enough for me to see his soul to the ferryman. I tucked the other into my pocket, tethering the soul to my being as he appeared to me.
Barely there, he swayed in the breeze that came off the river entrance as I proceeded to repeat the process with the other prisoners.
“Because every life matters. Every soul matters in this world. I doubt you care what my mate thinks of others, but I could tell you exactly why I think she infuriates you so.”
I moved to the next body, placing a golden coin upon the woman’s eye as I turned to look over my shoulder at Mab. Her lips pursed, her tongue running over her teeth as she rolled her eyes.
“And why is that, my darling stepson?”
“Because Estrella is living proof that you can be both powerful and kind. She is your reminder that you didn’t need to sacrifice your soul to be granted the power you have. After ruling for centuries, Estrella is your penance. She has the potential to be everything you have fought to become, everything you have clawed your way through life to achieve. She has been given that for merely existing, and where your people hate you for what you have forced yourself to become…” I paused, watching as Mab’s eye twitched. It was the subtlest sign that I’d struck a nerve, that I’d been correct in my assumption.
No matter how many centuries Mab had lived, everyone held onto the insecurities that plagued them as a child. Mab remembered how it felt to be second best, to be the dark child to her brother’s golden light.
Just. Like. Estrella.
“They will love her until their dying breath,” I finished, watching a shudder work through her body. As if the chill of my words crept up her neck, forcing her to acknowledge the truth of them.
“Perhaps I’ll kill her first,” she said, her voice cold as she snapped at me.
I continued my work, depositing my golden coins before I finished and stood before her.
“Maybe you will. If you were smart, you probably would,” I admitted, and it was a small comfort that if Estrella left this world, I would go with her. Our blood vow worked in the best of ways, ensuring that I would never be without her. “I felt her horror when she was with you. Knew it didn’t relate to pain for once. It didn’t take much for me to comprehend what you might have said that would elicit such a reaction from the woman I love. I know her, but even beyond that, I know you. I have spent centuries watching you collect children, watching you prey on the weak. You cannot get what you want from her if she is dead.”
“And what is it I want so desperately that I would allow her to live?” Mab asked, lacing her fingers together as I took a single step toward the souls waiting to go into the canal. To float down the river while I rowed my boat to where the ferryman waited at the entry to the Void. The Styx flowed just outside the cavern, waiting to take us there.
“Our child,” I said, a smile curving my lips as her mouth dropped open in dismay.
I may not have been able to speak to my mate, I may not have been able to hear her direct thoughts until the moment when our bond would be completed, but I knew her better than she knew herself.
“You want to bind our child to your will. Children are malleable. You could mold him or her into your image.”
“You are my greatest failure. I hope you know that,” Mab snapped.
I grinned at the reality that she’d been unable to break me the way she had so many others. That I hadn’t changed to suit her purposes.
“I take great pride in that,” I said, turning my back on her as I walked to the canal.
A lone rowboat waited for me; a single, double-sided oar placed within the boat. I stepped in, watching as the souls of the dead followed down the steps into the river. They floated in the water, lingering just beneath the surface as their transparent forms almost blended in.