Swallowing Darkness

Chapter Forty-Five

We reappeared in the winter field hand in hand. We'd dressed ourselves, and tied our weapons back on, and left that place of peace and magic, to step back into the aftermath of battle. No, worse than battle: bomb. There were no enemies to fight, just physics gone horribly wrong.

There were moans from the Red Caps, and for them to make noises of pain meant they were dying. But I knew what to do. I knew it as surely as you know your name, or your favorite color. I simply knew, because the air still smelled of summer, and our skin still held the dim glow of the moon and sun.

We stood in the center of the wounded, and we pushed our magic outward; as the queen had pushed darkness, we pushed blood and flesh. Blood to wash the metal bits from their bodies. There were cries of pain, clouds of blood in the dimness. Flesh to heal the wounds. Then the cries stopped, and the Red Caps got to their feet, a little shaky perhaps, but healed and whole. They stood to a man, and turned to us.

I held Holly and Ash's hands upward in mine. I called out, "The hand of blood!" and Holly stepped forth, his hand held high, his skin and hair and eyes shining with the healing that we had done.

"The hand of flesh!" and Ash stepped away from me, glowing with magic, and smiling.

I held my hands up to the sky and said, "I hold the hands of flesh and blood, and now I can make whole what is torn apart."

The Red Caps gathered around us, then dropped to their knees, their faces covered in blood from the caps that gave them their names. I went to Jonty, and touched his face. The moment I touched him, his cap ran with blood as if I'd dumped a bucket over his head. The other Red Caps clustered around me, touching, and where they touched, they bled. Then one of them grabbed Holly's wrist. Holly snarled at him, but stopped in the middle of drawing his blade because blood was pouring down the Red Cap's face.

Holly stared over his shoulder at me. "I truly have the hand of blood." He made it almost a question.

"Yes," I said, and nodded in case he was too far away to hear my voice.

A look of wonder crossed his face, and he turned back to the Red Cap at his feet and touched him gently with his free hand. The blood flowed faster, and the Red Caps began to cluster around him too.

One of them tried to grab Ash, but they did not bleed faster. "The hand of flesh," Ash said, and it wasn't a question.

I nodded.

The Red Caps clustered around Holly and me, but Ash didn't seem to mind. He just stared at his hand, as if he could feel which one held the power.

Doyle came to me, wading between the Red Caps, like walking through small, kneeling mountains. He went to his knees in front of me.

I shook my head and reached down, taking his hands in mine. I raised him to his feet. He took my hands in his, but he was staring at me in a way that I'd never seen before. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Look at yourself," he said, his voice soft.

I didn't understand what he meant; then I caught the soft glow on the edge of my vision. There was something on my head, and it was glowing, but the glow was so faint that I hadn't noticed it.

One of the Red Caps unsheathed his great sword, and held it up for Doyle. He took it, and held the flat of the blade so I could see myself. The image was distorted, but I could see something black and silver on my head, though silver was too strong a word. I turned my head, and the moonlight caught the dew, and outlined the spiderweb that formed the crown.

"Oh, my God," I whispered.

"It is the Crown of Moonlight and Shadows," he said.

I stared at him. "But that's the crown of the Unseelie Court."

"Yes," he said.

"And it's mine!" Cel screamed it, from the edge of the field. He held a spear in his hand. The runes glowed across the field, and I knew it was the spear known only as Shrieker. The queen had indeed opened the weapons vault to her son. Shrieker had once been able to slay armies, not with its blade, but with the screaming it made in the air when it was thrown.

I saw a flash of white on the edge of the field. Cel's arm pulled back, and he made a small running start to cover us all with its deadly scream. The white stag leaped. It made a graceful arc, and put itself in the way of the spear. Cel couldn't stop the blow, so the spear buried itself in the white stag's side, and was jerked from Cel's hands as the stag tried to run.

Doyle and the rest were running, closing on Cel. I had eyes only for the stag as it collapsed to its knees. The Red Caps and the brothers ran for the fight, except for Jonty. He scooped me into his arms, as he had that one night when he'd run across the fields to get me to a different battle in time. Now he ran like the wind was at his back to get me to the stag. To get me to Frost's side before he breathed his last.