The floor shivered, and thousands of shadowy hands rose out of the darkness. Icy fingers clutched at me, trying to drag me down, as wails and angry voices babbled in my ear. I slashed at the limbs clinging to me, turning several into smoke, but more appeared almost instantly, rising from the ground to rake at my skin and clothes. I felt myself sinking, the floor rising up past my knees, as the arms continued to pull me down. A few paces away, Puck and Nyx were also struggling with the sea of hands, trying to stop themselves from being dragged into the shadows.
The voices scraped in my ears, angry, accusing, full of hate. Icy fingers dug into my skin, their touch chilling, numbing my limbs and making them heavy. I could feel the darkness surging around me, felt myself sinking ever deeper into the mire. It was up to my neck now, cold and clammy against my jaw, and I could still feel myself sinking. I was drowning, but it was an ocean of power I was resisting, a sea of rage and hate and violence, pressing against my consciousness. It called to me, hissing at me to let go, and my Unseelie nature surged in response. The darkness crawled up my cheeks, flooding my mouth and nose, and I suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Just before I went under, I saw Meghan, a cloud of smoke and vanishing limbs surrounding her, being pulled into the shadows. Then the darkness filled my vision, and everything went black.
Enough.
I breathed deep, and felt the hate, fury, and violence rush in, filling me with power. My Unseelie side howled in response, reveling in the sudden surge of dark energy. All this anger; it wasn’t there to be fought, it was there to be used. I drew it in, feeling my Winter glamour swell like a tidal wave, and released it in a violent burst of magic around me.
The hands clinging to me and the sea of darkness vanished, blown away in a vicious explosion of ice and wind. I rose, opening my eyes, as rage and icy glamour swirled around me, tossing my hair and yanking at my coat. I took a breath, feeling the power expand and fill my veins, and smiled.
The nightmare creature stood on the other side of the chamber, towering overhead. It roared when it saw me, causing the ocean of hands to flail and writhe. Gazing up at the beast, I drew glamour to me and took a single step, bringing my foot down on the shadowed floor.
With sharp crinkling sounds, ice spread out from my boot and raced through the chamber, freezing the floor, climbing the walls, coating everything in a layer of frozen crystal. The shadow hands clawing at the air stiffened and turned to ice, freezing in place, and icicles grew from the ceiling with sharp crinkling sounds. The only thing unaffected was the nightmare beast, which howled in fury as the world around it froze, and started toward me, jaws gaping and eyes glowing red as it charged.
I raised a hand, and a massive icicle formed in the air above me, the point angled directly at the charging monster. With a flick of my wrist, the spear shot forward, slammed into the creature’s chest, and passed right through. Grimly, I conjured another, though it was nearly upon me now, and there would be no time for a third.
“Not the heart, prince,” someone called as I drew back my hand to throw it. Grimalkin’s voice, ringing out somewhere behind me. “The head! Destroy the skull!”
The nightmare beast screamed and lunged at me, talons raking. I hurled the icicle, aiming for the naked deer skull, and the huge spear of ice struck the creature directly in the forehead. The ice shattered, fracturing into dozens of glittering shards, but the monster staggered with a wail, reeling back and clutching its head.
Around me, the carpet of hands vanished, turning into clouds of smoke. Puck, Nyx, and Meghan appeared, gasping as the sea of limbs dissolved and coiled away on the air. Lowering its arms, the nightmare beast roared again, and I saw a crack had appeared in the bony skull, right in the center of its forehead.
“The skull!” Grimalkin’s voice came again, making Puck, Nyx, and Meghan jerk up, though the cat himself was nowhere to be seen in the dissolving smoke. “The head is its weak point. Destroy the skull, quickly, and the monster should disappear.”
“You could have told us that yesterday, Furball,” Puck called, raising his arms with a shimmer of Summer magic. A flock of ravens appeared around him, and Puck himself disappeared, as the swarm of birds rose up and flew toward the approaching monster. They didn’t stop, but one by one slammed into the creature’s skull with little explosions of black feathers. As it staggered, a beam of lightning descended from the ceiling, hitting it in the forehead with flash and a peal of thunder. Screaming, the nightmare beast fell to its knees, and Nyx appeared above it, hurling a trio of light crescents that struck its head with audible cracks.
I raised my arm, opening myself up to the dark power, to the anger and rage and hate swirling around me. Winter glamour flared, and a huge frozen stalactite appeared in the air above the creature’s skull. It continued to grow, until it was bigger than the monster, a lethal frozen point angled right at its head.
The nightmare beast swung its skull toward me, and its burning crimson eyes met my own. Staring into the gaze of the monster, I felt an ancient presence peering out at me. Not the nightmare creature itself, but something even older. Something huge and primordial, and hungry. I felt the emptiness within: a hunger that could swallow worlds and lay waste to everything. For a moment, I felt crushed beneath the weight of its gaze. But then the icy rage flooded in, blocking my fears, shielding me from the ancient presence. I stared into the eyes of a sleeping king and bared my teeth in defiance.
You will not enter this world. I will put a stop to this, right now.
I clenched a fist, and the still growing icicle plunged down, striking the center of the bleached skull and crushing the monster’s head to the floor. It let out one final cry that was cut short as the ice pierced through the skull and shattered it. Amid the cacophonous grinding of ice against stone, I heard the faint clattering of bone chips against the rocky floor.
The creature’s shadowy body dissolved into smoke, writhed into the air, and vanished. As the broken chunks of icicle settled against the floor and stopped moving, an eerie silence descended on the chamber, broken only by the faint crinkling of ice as it continued to expand over the walls and ceiling.
I breathed deep, feeling a euphoric rush of power course through my veins. I remembered this, having the power of Winter at my fingertips, tapping into the darkness of my Unseelie side. I’d given it up to have a soul, but I’d forgotten what it was like; the raw, vicious power of Unseelie rage. Gazing at the remains of the giant deer skull, now shattered and lying in pieces over the floor, I smiled coldly in satisfaction.
Your avatar has fallen, Nightmare King, I thought, wondering if, on some level, he would hear me. Stay in your dreams, and leave the Nevernever in peace. Or the same will happen to you.
Puck landed next to me with a swirl of black feathers, shaking them out of his hair as he rose. “Okay, I officially do not like this Nightmare King,” he stated, as Meghan and Nyx joined us as well. “If he’s going to be spawning creepies like that, he can stay out of the Nevernever and keep his dreams to himself. Faery is crazy enough without all these nightmares.”