Swallowing Darkness   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

It was Galen who wrapped his hands around the spear, and took it out of the stag's side to show the horrible wound. Galen stood above us, bathed in the rose petals, the spear in his hands, his face anguished, his clothes covered in blood.

Rhys knelt by the stag's head, hands gripping the smooth white horns. Tears trailed from his one good eye. Mistral came to stand with us, gripping his own more slender spear. I saw Sholto at the far edge of the field, his sluagh like a black cloud of nightmare shapes flying and creeping with him. He stopped to stare at us grouped around the white stag. He bowed his head, as if he knew.

Ash and Holly stood with the Red Caps. They had all lowered their weapons and pointed them at the ground as a sign of respect.

A voice came out of the sweet fall of petals. "What would you give for your Killing Frost?"

"Anything."

"Would you give the crown upon your head?" the voice asked.

"Yes," I said.

Mistral said "Meredith." But the other men said nothing. Mistral hadn't been with us from the beginning, so he didn't understand.

"And you, Darkness, would you give up your crown?"

Doyle took my hand in his, and said, "To have my right hand at my side again, I would."

"So be it," the voice said. There was a wind, and the scent of rain, and the dark light of the crowns was gone.

But a hand reached up through the hole in the stag's side. I touched that hand, and it wrapped around mine. "Goddess, help us," I said.

"She is," Doyle said, and he went to the hole in the stag's side. He tore at it with his hands. Rhys joined him. Mistral crawled to us, but he was too wounded to help. Galen gave the spear Shrieker to Mistral, and used his one unwounded arm to help tear at the hole. It was as if the stag's body had become a shell, something dry and unreal. It flaked and tore under their hands, and a second hand appeared along with the first, then arms. And then we were pulling him from the wreck of his other form.

That fall of silver hair fell over my lap, and then finally he turned and looked at me. Those gray eyes, that face that was almost too handsome for words, but there was no arrogance in my Frost now. There was only pain, and so much emotion trapped in those eyes.

He fell into our arms, mine and Doyle's. We held him while he shook. He clung to us while we cried. The Darkness and the Killing Frost clung to each other, and to me, and wept.



Chapter Forty-Eight

Andais is still queen of Air and Darkness, but the crown did not appear above her head.