Silver Hollow (56 page)

Exasperated with
the
most ridiculous of Faye’s questions, Amie gestured widely with her free arm to the tunnel ahead. “Look, I don’t know what we may be about to face, but Dearg told me I only needed to say his name and he’d find me.”

“You really like him, don’t you?” Faye said with a smirk.

“Doesn’t matter right now, Faye. Now look, we have to focus. If we’re going to break the curse and wake the dragons, we’re going to need his help. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and the trail is faint.”

“What trail?” Faye hung onto Amie’s arm, squinting for a better glance at the cave floor ahead.

“You can’t see it. It’s like this gold dust stuff.”

Faye gasped, “Dragon dust! Amie, he like, actually shed his skin for you?”

Amie was uneasy with the idea of Dearg shedding his skin a
nd wasn’t entirely sure what i
t meant. The mood changed after this however as the gravity of what lay ahead weighed heavily on them.

“What is it?” Tension thrummed to life in Amie’s limbs, escaped with her words much as she tried to hide it. The form
-
fitting kick-arse outfit Dameri
had
lent to her wasn’t helping relax her either. Each of them had donned what Faye called their battle gear. As the only clothing Amie had been allowed to wear
thus far
was princess clothes, her mother had
had
to lend a hand once more.

For some reason, she thought about the scene they had left no more than an hour ago. Arthur had wrapped Amie in his arms before she could react and cried over her
,
saying, “
It’s happening all over again, magpie.
”

Dameri did her best to soothe his fears and explain what truly was happening at the great house, and then eyed Amie over his shoulder. Her look
promised
they would learn how to be a
family once again, even if Amie could remember nothing before her childhood but echoes in dreams.
Amie
looked back at the only remaining one of her three best friends and
realized
this was her family too, in some ways more than her blood had ever been.

As they came to the underground river and the pool glowing with mysterious fish and water sprites, they stopped for a quick breather and taste of the waters.

“This isn’t going to make me sick
,
is it?” Amie belatedly commented.

Faye laughed, suddenly the vivacious human doctor again, “Of course not. You’re half Seelie.” Amie turned a curious eye
on
her friend. Ever since they surprised her in the field and broke the truth to her, there was still so many questions unanswered, things unsaid. Even now
,
as Amie’s skin gleamed with a burning pearly sheen, she was amazed how different Faye looked. Her bronze skin smoldered like smoking embers and her black hair stood almost
naturally
in those impossible spikes.

Are those…feathers? Crap
,
she’s totally the chaos chick isn’t sh
e? Makes so much more sense now.

Faye caught her stare while inspecting her arsenal and offered a knowing slanted grin
.
“See something you like?”

Amie was on the cusp of retaliating when something occurred they had not been expecting.

A gust of wind escaped from the tunnel ahead and blasted over them like a wet hot breath
,
and a strangled, beastly, thunder-like roar followed it. Rocks shifted and cracked around them, settled back into place and emanated a fine golden dust over the two Sidhe.

Faye had already pulled two sleek knives from her belt and crouched low. Amie’s incandescent sphere now vibrated with a threatening hum. She knew she must be stronger than fear. Rather than allow her last remaining guardian
to
fight for her, she had every intention of holding her own. So she opened that door in her mind, the one
holding
back the powers in her father’s ring
,
and let her inhuman side take over.

With the whispers of a hundred memories lingering in the ancient stone, Amie led them confidently forward. Into the darkness they filed together, Amie’s eyes glued to the trail her killer had left behind.
Then
Faye grasped her so quickly Amie teetered on the tips of her boots before crashing back into her friend. When she twisted her neck, Faye’s dagger was held to her lips, her teeth sharp and bared in a muffled hiss.

For a long moment, silence returned to the cave, but then the pile of rocks ahead of them shifted and groaned deeply. Amie gasped, sparing a look for Faye before she stepped closer.

“What are you doing?” Faye hissed against her ear, jerking her back.

“It’s okay,” Amie assured
her
, though honestly, she had no clue if the beast was going to eat or kiss her. The closer they tread, the less threatening the dragon seemed. And there was something familiar in those inwardly golden glowing scales.

Amie crawled over to the edge where the beast was retching in pained spasms, cracks and pops filled the space between his screams as his form struggled to change. She had rounded to where he was wrapped into himself, clutching at his belly with massive taloned claws. Smoke billowed from his nostrils and into her face, taking the breath from her lungs.

Instead of the rational fear she should have felt, Amie’s inner
nixy
thrummed to life in her veins. She knew the beast wasn’t going to hurt her, but he was
obviously
struggling for control. So she did the unthinkable. Before Faye could snatch her away, Amie ran to the dragon’s head and pressed her hands to the bridge of his snout.

“Amie!” Faye’s scream came more like a hoarse whisper.

After waving Faye away,
Amie
gasped to find an eye the size of her head, reptilian iris outlined by rust and shades of blood
,
staring unblinkingly at her. For an instant she could feel the press of frightened voices trapped inside the ring, warning her of the power of this dragon. But she fought the urge to recoil and smiled when she felt the familiar tug of her inner
nixy
.

“
Grrathgar
,” she whispered.

The beast roared, the gust of air throwing her back against the rocks. Covering her ears, she screamed
with it. Bone and sinew popped and crushed in sickening echoes with his pain. When it was over, the creature had disappeared and in its place la
y
the naked form of a man. The dust of his shed skin was over everything, covering it in a fine layer. Dearg gleamed as if he had been hewn from the precious metal itself.

As soon as she found her footing, Amie was at his side, turning him onto his back and clasping his chest. Still he shook in pain, broke out in a frighteningly cold sweat. “Dearg?” she attempted, willing him to open his eyes. His chest was nearly shredded with fresh claw marks, golden blood smeared over his tattered flesh. An unnamed deeply buried fear rose up in her again and she fought against its efforts to immobilize her.

A sob choked her as she whispered over him, even though her heart was breaking. “Dearg…you can’t die. I’m not strong without you. I can’t—I can’t face them alone. We’re so much more together than apart, don’t you know that?”

“Amie
,
” he breathed and her heart soared. Before he could speak again her lips were covering his, her hands pressing into his wounded chest
,
and life poured through her veins and into him. Her
nixy
covered them both, shining like the moon.

When she came up for air the dragon was still present in his golden orbs, yet a weary smile tilted his grin until it threatened to split his face in two. Amie’s relieved sob came out a laugh when he dug his fingers into her braid
-
bound hair.

In a crispy voice he rasped, “Foolish
pixied
wench. After everything I do you still try to kill yourself?”

Amie pushed off of him and snapped, “Are you kidding me? I just saved your tail
,
Eddie
. You owe me for life now.”

“Then I suppose I should start repaying you soon, aye?”

Amie’s smile dimmed. Her fingers brushed the blood from his chest to reveal the fresh set of scars marring his chiseled chest. “So I’m guessing you’re not planning on telling me how you got these.”

His straight blond eyebrows drew together, the line of his chin settling into a hard edge as he replied, “You’ve changed things. I have watched from the stables, in case they learned the secret to come inside. I do not ken what you did, but the curse has been weakening.”

“Which one?” Faye asked from the other side of them.

Without turning his fixation from Amie he answered, “The curse that put my kind to eternal sleep. The youngest woke first and are angry. Some of my people forgot how to transform into their lesser skins long ago and only think in the simplest of terms. They wanted revenge and dragons do nay reason well as your lot.”

Amie reached to take his hand and squeezed it. “Do you think, if I release them, they’d fight on our side?”

Faye rolled her eyes and snorted, “Pig-headed optimist…”

“They will obey me,” he nearly growled.

Without missing a beat, Faye grilled him further, “And how are you so sure they won’t take off and burn the whole castle down?”

Dearg’s smile was pained and ferocious at once. “I reminded them
of
something they forgot.”

“What?” Amie’s soft voice drew his tortured gaze.

“That I am King.”

…

Dearg found his strength through Amie’s constant touch, the link of skin to skin and their laced fingers, enough to lead them back the way they should have come. Faye was more than happy to leave the darkness behind. The roars of the waking and dreaming dragons had the
Unseelie
jittery in such an enclosed space. Though Dearg countered her fears
by
telling her there were places in these forgotten caverns
which
spanned the length and height of villages.

Amie wanted to know how she could unleash the dragons fully from the curse. Yet when she suggested it, he eyed her warily and growled, “
’
Twould be most unwise to wake the elders. Slaine and I shall
blither
this army easily.” His accent always thickened the more relaxed he was around her. It also fulfilled a schoolgirl fantasy of hers,
the
whole handsome foreign stranger appeal, the reason for her former obsession with Michael Fassbender.

Faye snorted, “Whatever you say,
Eldest
,” earning a feral growl from Dearg. He was too close to the beast, understandable after centuries keeping it locked inside.

The stables were too dangerous now, he later told them. The battle had raged through the night and now the golem and Unseelie leading this attack had taken over the grounds. He had blown his cover when Slaine took a blast of ice fire to the wing and fell somewhere among the battlements. Ben and James helped cover him from the roof with their arrows and bullets, but it was obvious they couldn’t win this alone. And anyone who had been inside the house since the outer wall was breached hadn’t come out of it. The only good news was the defenses were keeping the enemy outside.

Still they had made their way to the familiar endless chasm and the bridge
leading
to the hidden stable doors and Dearg’s cottage. Amie felt warmth return to her at the sight of it and glanced up to catch his reaction. He scarcely lifted his weary blue eyes before hanging his head and leaned heavily into her again. Casting a worried frown at his tense jaw and the rigid lines his body had taken to in the last hour, Amie hesitated. His chest was healed but he was unfit for another fight in her opinion. Could they truly face the
Exiled
army and not expect for there to be casualties?

Faye sidled up to Amie with a playful nudge. “Hey, you okay there?”

“Yeah
.
”

Faye proceeded to do what she did best then, call out her innermost thoughts. “You know not all Unseelie are evil. Sort of like not all Seelie are pure.”

Amie snorted at the thought,
Guess that counts me out, then.

“But the people we’re fighting lost themselves in the human world,” Faye added. “We don’t feel emotions like humans, or at least not so many at one time. Revenge to us means literal backstabbing, not emotional or whatever. Problem is, the moment the
Unseelie
realized they couldn’t ever come home
,
they started trying to rule over humans. You wouldn’t believe how deep they are.”

“Sounds political.” As Amie spoke, a tremor shook the ground high overhead, reverberating through the cavern’s foundations. A long look passed between them as she wondered what could be the cause.