but the wall of noise smashed into streetlight and skeleton-thin corpse, flushing fiery gold at its edges. She had plenty of breath. As the lamppost twisted, curling and blackening, the remains shredded, black dust working itself finer and finer until she had to gasp, her eyes leaking again and the weird weightlessness of oxygen deprivation filling her skull. She staggered back, almost fell as her left shoe met a plastic bag and had to dig down sharply, scraping against cracked concrete.
Most of the streetlamp was gone. Henzler was truly gone as well. He would not be joining the Sluagh once dark fell, either. The host of the Unforgiven Dead would be denied one more to swell its ranks.
Robin panted for a little while. Holding the song without breath was dangerous; it could just as easily burn her to ash. She shuddered, great gripping waves passing through her, and sought to calm herself.
When she could finally stand upright again, she shook her hands out. Guilt would have to wait, again. There was much to be done before she let anyone, Gallow or Unseelie, catch her.
I must visit the dwarves. She winced, shook the plastic bag from her heel, and set out, grim-faced, her jaw clenched so tightly her teeth ached.
WHAT PRICE?
31
The throneroom was vast, lofty ceilings hung with sheets of red and black velvet. Stone logs, chipped and oozing the slow resin of their tearing from the Rim’s cliffs, burned with a bright blue, heatless flame, each shadow knife-edged as it danced with the flickering. Those flames, contained in a shallow, circular firepit, darted toward the runes carved into the lip of the pit and retreated as the angular shapes twisted menacingly. An obsidian-glass floor ran with ghostly clouds below the surface, and some said it was by gazing at their shapes that Unwinter discerned all that befell within his borders—and many other places, besides.
Summer had a Stone, and Unwinter’s was the Throne. It crouched patiently at the end of the hall, its spines glistening, and its heartsblood cushions were hard as stone itself. Sometimes it appeared of smooth dark metal, other times of granite, but always, the Throne’s sharp, high-rearing daggers exuded that faint hint of crimson moisture.
Even a Throne hungered, and required feeding.
High, narrow doors opened, a crack of ruby glow from outside shivering as it fell against pallid stonelight. A shape appeared, coalescing out of the glow, and it stepped onto the obsidian floor with a tiptapping instead of glove-soled softness.
The shadows deep in the Throne’s embrace stirred. A high-peaked helm, chased with silver, lifted slightly, but the armored form of Haahrhne the Hunter, Unwinter himself, once-Consort of Summer, Lord of the Fell Host, did not otherwise move. Two crimson pinpricks kindled in the helm’s deep eyesockets.
He did not speak, watching the guest solemnly pace around the firepit. The stoneflames leapt again, hungrily, but the visitor did not falter. He merely made his way to the deep-etched star-compass before the Throne, its carved lines rasping as they slid through the obsidian, and bowed, deeply, doffing an imaginary cap. “Greetings to you, O Lord of the Fell, from a humble traveler.” Yellowgreen irises flashed, a darting glance to the Throne, and the guest did not straighten. His ear-tips twitched slightly, though, poking through a silken mat of brown hair.
Unwinter stirred. “Goodfellow.” Soft and cruel, the syllables mouthing velvet hangings, making them flutter uneasily. “You dare much.”
“Oh, we’ve no love for each other, that’s true.” Puck straightened, his slim brown hands kept carefully away from hilt or pipe. “But you’re a just lord, and a wise one. Your steward let me pass.”
Unwinter did not answer. Those crimson pinpricks burned steadily, unblinking.
Puck did not smile. Set and grave, his boyface looked much older now, and the unforgiving light etched hair-thin lines at corners of mouth and eye.
Finally, Unwinter’s gauntleted fingers on one hand twitched. Five phalanges and a thumb, all a joint or two too long and encased in exquisite dwarf-wrought armor, the metal making a slight chiming sound as it moved. “Speak, then.”
“The Low Counties are withered. Your realm bears a sickness, too. Do you care to know its source?” Puck stuck his thumbs in his belt, spraddle-legged, and lifted his chin.
“I have only to look at who does not suffer to guess the source, Fatherless. Her corruption grows.”
Puck nodded thoughtfully. “And rumor, that winged beast, whispers she says the same of you. What am I to believe?”
A slow, chill-grinding sound echoed and boomed through the throneroom. Unwinter laughed, and