43. Dark Vows

The devious woman who only pretended to care for Cece and me is wearing a short but gorgeous purple and black dress, looking nothing like the governess I've come to know. Intricate lace covers her arms and neck, the hem finishing right above her knees. The color contrasts nicely with her creamy thighs, and her hair falls around her face in glossy, youthful curls.

One is wearing a black evening coat, and the tailored ensemble fits him like a glove. I don't know why it bugs me so much, given the truth of the circumstances, but they look perfect together.

Cut from the same shadow cloth.

But it's the golden matching crowns laying on top of their heads that boil my blood.

The other three Damians are all there, too, standing to the side with their backs to me, the way groomsmen do at most weddings.

"Let's proceed with the vows," a sprite says. His loud, ceremonial pitch is easily recognizable. It belongs to the sprite who usually announces the king's arrival.

My pulse swirls at my temples. Vows? Mother help me, there's not much time left to stop this wedding.

"Nell! Something's coming!" Cece says on a rushed whisper.

I turn around in time to catch a glimpse of Baka hiding at the foot of the stairwell. The blue sprite clutches a crossbow with her tiny, wrinkled hands as she tip-toes up the first step.

"Don't worry. She's a friend."

I turn my attention back to the spiders, but none of them seems to have spotted Baka—or Cece and me. At least not yet. In fact, they look perfectly complacent. Almost…happy.

On the altar, Morrigan's red lips twist in a genuine smile. The smile of a woman who's about to marry the love of her life.

The lace of her long, triangular sleeve brushes One's neck as she cups his face. Anyone could believe they're actually in love if it wasn't for the petrified audience—and the nervous tick of One's jaw.

I force my eyes closed and draw in a few cleansing breaths. In and out. In and out.

Baka inches up the stairs until she's right beside me. "I knew ye'd come, deary. But by the spindle, ye kept me on me toes 'til the end." She hands over the weapon with a wink.

The crossbow is heavy in my hand. There's no bolt, which means I'm going to have to craft my own.

"One is enough." Her wrinkled hand squeezes my lower arm. "Don't miss."

She's right. I've only got one shot at this, but the weird angle makes it almost impossible to take proper aim at Morrigan, and the patchwork in the railing is too tight for a bolt to pass between the rectangular, interlocking pieces of metal.

The master of ceremonies below hasn't stopped the proceedings, his voice like sand slipping through an hourglass. "Mortal love wanes. Fae love cuts to the bone. Will you cut yourself to honor your commitment to each other, from this moment forth to eternity?"

"I will," Morrigan says. "Damian… I love you."

The shadow bolt that had just started to take form in my palm crumbles to dust, and I start all over again.

"I know," One sighs.

"All these people couldn't even recognize their own king. They don't see you like I do. Two will learn to accept it. We have enough in common. And Three's never been so discerning… It's up to you, One. Whether our lives become bliss or misery is entirely up to you." With that, she carves a line in her palm with the blade.

Cece draws in a sharp breath, and Lori angles her face to our hiding spot. A glint of recognition twinkles in her eyes, and she quickly glues her gaze to the altar.

"It's not right!" Lori screams loudly, buying me a bit of time.

A nearby spider scurries across the clearing and knocks the huntress down face-first into the earth.

She rolls over, but the spider takes a bite out of her chest. "Arrrrrgh." Her body arches from the ground, her hands still bound behind her back.

"If Lori dies—if you kill any of my people for nothing—our deal is off!" One shouts, and his voice reverberates across the gardens. "You can't rule alone, Rye. So if you don't want to be overthrown in a fortnight by any shadow Fae with a title, you better think twice about your next move."

Thank the Mother! The spider stops abruptly, and I stifle a hot sob.

A fleeting frown ghosts over Morrigan's face, and I'm familiar enough with her facial expressions to know she's both worried and angry. "Obviously, I wasn't going to kill her. Now. What did we say about being rude to your new queen, Lorisha?"

The spider curves its belly forward to access its silk-spinning organ and sews Lori's mouth shut with its web. Tears flood my best friend's eyes. A grimace of pain and horror twists her face as the spider suspends her in the air like a perverse, bleeding ornament. Her legs dangle and sway from side to side.

The blazing disgust in my heart numbs me to the bone, and I shape my magic into a shadow bolt. The smokey projectile grows in my hands, and I fashion it between my palms until it's as sharp as my pain and as certain as my thirst for revenge. The lever shakes in my grip as I crank the string into place.

"Now, where were we?" Morrigan says.

"Let's get this over with." One steals the jeweled dagger from her grasp. The hunch of his back betrays how tired and defeated he feels, and—No!

He cuts his arm with the dagger and paints his palm with fresh blood. Morrigan entwines their fingers, their blood and magic mixing under the Morheim moon. The red liquid seeps inside their skin and disappears, and bile rises to my mouth.

The sprite clears his throat loudly, clearly shocked. "Um… Under the watchful eyes of the Seven, you may now claim your bride."

He's married. Married to the destructive traitor who used me to spy on him. The love we shared couldn't convince him that he was worth fighting for. And Morrigan used it to seal his fate.

One is enough…

My eyes narrow, and my heart wilts in my chest. One day, I'm going to kill that woman. I stand tall and aim directly for my mark, praying to the Mother and all the Faerie gods.

The magic bolt flies with a zip. Before I can even know if I succeeded, I'm stuck under the same immobilizing power as the others, unable to move my arms or my feet. A sluggish ache takes hold of my muscles, like I've been plunged into a tub of ice.

The projectile sinks inside its intended target, and the hunters' mouths open on a silent gasp. Four falls to his knees next to the scattered pieces of the Damian puzzle, my precious shadow bolt sticking out of his chest.

"Well…how about that for a woman scorned?" Morrigan chuckles, her brows pulled together. She waves me forward. "Come along, Penelope. Don't be shy, my little princess."

My spine hurts, but my body obeys. Using the staircase Baka climbed stealthily earlier to hand me the crossbow, I put one foot in front of the other until I'm standing in front of my conniving governess, more under her thumb than ever.

"How did you wake up so fast? You couldn't have traveled the in-between without your mask—" she rummages through her bag and clutches my emerald mask between her hands.

One looks shell-shocked. "You were safe, kitten. Why would you come back?"

Four coughs up a mouthful of blood, and Two and Three back away from him, eyes full of fright. Four's emaciated body curls into itself. I couldn't kill Morrigan with one bolt, but I could kill Four. I've finally figured out how the curse works.

"I came back to save you," I tell him.

Morrigan's face changes as she realizes my shot landed exactly where it was supposed to. "What did you do?" Her gaze bounces between us. "Come and heal him, quick. And I will let you live."

Still under her spell, I walk over to Four and put my hand over his heart. Black blood smears my fingers. Right next to the bolt is Morrigan's poisoned needle, and I pinch the area beneath the pearly tip. "I cannot heal what is already dead."

"Silly girl, you seem to want to make some kind of point, but Damian and I are married now. I don't know what you think you came here to accomplish?—"

I turn to One, Two, and Three in turn. "You don't need Four."

"Shush," Morrigan orders.

The spiders glare at me, but Morrigan doesn't have enough magic to keep control of the entire congregation and steal my voice.

"Let her say her piece," One growls, raising his arm between us to warn her off.

Jo motions to his unbound hands behind Morrigan's back. Now, I just have to give the speech of my life.

I anchor my gaze to One. "You say you can't feel, can't love, can't reign as you are, but you're wrong. You've been doing it for decades. Maybe not the same way you used to, but you're doing it. You do feel and you do love. The day you used your magic to split into four parts, you might have been the dark and unfeeling nightmare hunter, and Two the cruel megalomaniac?—"

"Hey!" Two protests.

"And Three the mute, sex-crazed animal."

Three grins from ear to ear.

"But that's not who you guys are anymore—or at least not all you are."

Jo moves with stealth and purpose, the spiders' complete attention fixed on me as he cuts Misha, Cary, and James' bindings.

"If you really couldn't love or feel true empathy without Four, you would have brought your kingdom into chaos, but you didn't. You all learned to be Damian in your own way, and I wasn't the one who allowed you to merge again. You did it all on your own." My breath catches in my throat when I slide the needle out of Four to bring an end to his suffering. "One of you is enough. It's always been enough."

Four's body flakes off into dark ashes under my palm, the dead piece finally put to rest. The ashes spiral in the wind and zoom toward the closest Damian, just as I've been praying they would.

I was right.

"Now that the dead limb has been cut off—now that her poison has nothing to feed on—you can finally heal, Damian. "

In the blink of an eye, only one of them stands in front of me, and my chest quakes with hot, blinding relief.

I can't begin to describe the sum of them together. The mask flaunted by the Shadow King is made of iridescent onyx and freckled with polished glass. The beauty of him makes it impossible for me to look away.

"But—we made a deal!" Morrigan motions to the bleeding cut on her arm. "We're married now. You can't deny me your magic."

Shadows swirl around him, drawn from the Hawthorn, the earth—the night sky itself.

A long sword stretches from his hand. "Come and take it then, darling," Damian snarls.

He strikes, but Morrigan blocks the blade with her own just in time not to be cut in two. The sound of the swords crashing together thunders across the clearing, and the leaves of the Hawthorn ripple at the force of the blow.

Chaos takes over. The spiders dart into the fray from above and below, Cary and Misha jumping into the fight, too. The renewed power of the Shadow King drums in the ground, instilling a new energy in all of us. I quickly jump over the edge of the altar to help James cut Lori down.

Jo holds the spiders at bay while we lay her down between us and tear the webs away. Despite the deep wounds between her ribs and the leftover spiderwebs filling her nose, Lori pulls herself up to her elbows next to me. The holes in her chest and side are full of venom, and my heart races at the extensive damage.

"Don't move." I push my powers forward desperately. I might not be a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, but I can save her. The steady current of shadow magic under my fingertips glitches near the end, unable to cure the venom-laced injury in its entirety.

"Are you okay?" I stand and help her to her feet.

"No, but it's a start," she croaks. A semblance of skin covers the infected lesion and relieves part of the pain, enough for my best friend to summon her shadow daggers to life.

Jo, Lori, and James form a protective bubble around me as more and more spiders hone in on our position. They're all looking at me and not them, which makes the creatures more reckless.

Because there's no question who Morrigan wants to kill most.

Damian and Morrigan both have access to the same well of magic, so their fight is evenly-matched. They parry and attack in turn until Morrigan manages to nick Damian's arm, right next to the cut he made during the ceremony.

The air pulses with darkness. With a powerful kick to the stomach, he sends the phantom queen flying to the ground.

"What now, Rye? No plan B?" Damian's voice slices through the gardens, as sharp and dangerous as the tip of his blade.

Blood drips down his arm and falls to the ground as he marches forward. Morrigan's heels dig into the earth between them in a frenzy. The woman struggles to find her footing, but her back collides with the roots of the Hawthorn. Just as she's about to open her mouth to speak, Damian impales her on his sword, sinking it right through her stomach.

The spiders screech in terror, the arachnids scurrying over to their mistress in a fury of arched legs and globulous eyes.

Morrigan scrambles to her feet, using the gnarly roots to hold herself up, and smiles from ear to ear. Blood rushes into her mouth, but she just spits it to the ground. "If I die, I'm bringing the kid along with me."

Damian finds my gaze and shrugs. "You can't touch her now."

But Esme has never once called mekid. My chest shrinks. Damian moves to finish her before a heart-wrenching scream rises from the balcony.

My head snaps back to the railing, and I run to the stairs, rushing up to my sister. "Cece!"

So much blood… Her wound is identical to Morrigan's. Without hesitation, I press my hands to the gaping hole in my sister's stomach.

I heal her, and for every ounce of magic that heals her, I figure the gash in Morrigan's stomach will close up, too. No wonder she was so cocky. Cece groans a series of unintelligible apologies, and after making sure she's alright, I peer over the banister. "What did you do to her, witch?"

"You know me, darling. I always have a plan B," Morrigan slurs, her mouth red with blood, but her body good as new. She tosses a glance in our direction. "As long as the kid lives, so do I."

The hunters form a circle to block her retreat. Her loyal spiders hiss in warning, swarming around the trunk to protect her. There's at least thirty of them left—enough to inflict real damage. Morrigan tilts her head back and laughs a horrible laugh. The edges of her body blur, and in the span of one breath, she turns into a spider under our frozen stares.

I quickly lose sight of her in the swarm, the creatures all identical as they skitter to escape. The hunters watch in shock, unable to capture them all, unwilling to risk Cece's life by killing the wrong one.

The heaviness in my belly throbs, scorching and cold.

We've lost her…