Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)(18)

Ancient memories drifted through his mind. The thunder of Fae horses’ hooves pounding the ground and the clash of swords. The screams of pain, and the flares of deadly magic so bright and beautiful, warriors stopped to stare in awe as they died.

And then that final unsurpassable roar of Power, as Morgan unleashed what he had been holding in reserve.

The earth shook and cracked with a force that had thrown horses to the ground and brought everyone—the most Powerful nobles and foot soldiers of two kingdoms, the Light Court and the Dark, and the humans allied to either side, both friend and foe alike—to their knees.

As long as Nikolas lived, he would never forget that sound.

A human had done that. A human had brought some of the oldest and most Powerful of the Elder Races to their knees.

Or, at least, a creature that had once been human.

Nikolas didn’t see any sign of a Mini, but when he drew close to the cluster of white oak trees, he pulled to the side of the road, stepped out of the Porsche, and walked.

The sun’s light waned and shadows lengthened, and insects played a seesaw symphony in the underbrush. The gloaming was near, the time that was neither day nor night, when shadows left their anchors to mingle and whisper together before the moon’s pale light sent them scurrying home again.

As Nikolas strolled alongside the underbrush, the symphony fell silent, and it only began to play again when he had passed.

At first he didn’t pick up Robin’s scent, but he did sense a smear of darkness on the road that drew him. He reached the spot where a hiss of dark magic had expired and knelt on one knee to examine it. The darkness was both psychic and physical. The magic had burned into the asphalt.

Isabeau’s Power signature was quite distinct. When he passed his hand over the shadow, it bit his skin, the last toxic sting before the last of the magic dissipated completely. Glancing at his palm where a reddened welt raised, he dismissed the tiny injury and took a deep breath.

With the exception of Oberon, none of the Dark Court who had Wyr in their ancestry could change into their animal forms, but their Wyr blood did give them enhanced abilities. Gawain was the better tracker, and it must have been several hours since Robin passed this way, but once Nikolas had knelt down, he could finally scent the puck, along with the faint scent of a strange woman.

What was she? Clearly she wasn’t Isabeau herself, and she didn’t smell like Light Fae.

He laid his hand on the asphalt road and asked it to tell him what it knew of her. The oldest roads in this in-between land that bordered England and Wales, and Other lands and Earth, were more sentient than most realized.

The road woke and gave him the impression of dichotomies. Strength and fragility. Exhaustion and determination. And magic. So much magic.

And something else. There was something about her. Something distinct, perhaps even familiar. He strained to glean more information, but the road had ceased talking to him and had fallen asleep again.

“I wish to know what you are doing here,” he whispered to the unknown woman, drumming his fingers on the road. “And what you might have to do with a stray puck and an enemy Queen.”

Now that he had located Robin’s fading scent, he stood and followed it a few meters farther until it disappeared. Then there was only the woman’s scent for many meters. Unless Robin had managed to take flight somehow—and the puck could change his shape into many creatures, but he could not fly—the woman must have picked him up.

Nikolas tracked Robin’s scent backward to the place where it left the road and disappeared into a hole in the bordering hedge. Robin had cut across the land until he reached the road. Then Nikolas turned to trace the woman’s scent back along the road and came to a place where tire tracks disturbed the tall grasses on the narrow shoulder.

There had been a Mini, Gawain had said, and the woman must have been driving it. When it broke down, she walked into town.

And she had encountered a wandering puck along the way.

The rest of the tale would not be told here. He walked back to the Porsche and drove into Westmarch.

The town was younger than that ancient, cataclysmic battle but older than most. Worn cobblestone streets cut across one another in a crooked pattern. The shops had closed some time earlier, all except for a single newsagent’s, a liquor store at one end of the high street, and a large, sprawling pub nestled in the center of the town, named Dark Knight.

The pub’s wooden sign had a painting of a knight, bearing a shield with Oberon’s crest—a white lion rampant against crimson crossed swords on a black background. Some people had long memories in these places.

When Nikolas came to the pub’s parking lot, he saw Gawain’s Harley-Davidson parked between other vehicles. A Mini was tucked out of the way at the back of the lot. He pulled in and switched off the engine.

Briefly he checked his phone. Gawain had texted him fifteen minutes ago. Waiting for you in the pub. Robin’s been here. I can smell him.

So as he had suspected, the puck and the woman had indeed come into town together. That was a tale Nikolas quite wanted to hear.

And if the Mini was any indication, at least the woman was still here.

He texted Gawain, Guard the front door. I’m going to test a theory and come in the back way.

You got it, Gawain replied.

*

Sophie couldn’t make it until the evening.

No matter how she fought to stay awake, an inexorable black tide washed over her, and she fell into a deep pit of unconsciousness.