Oberon's Children

  Chapter Twenty: Robin Goodfellow

  I don’t remember how I crossed the room, nor much of what happened immediately after, but I do know that I attacked Robin. He came down off the gem-encrusted throne to meet me, leaving the silver crown behind, and we crashed together at the top of the Hall.

  It was like the times we’d fought in training, but with stakes that were infinitely higher. I’d never been able to beat him – and we both knew it. But I fought this time with my hatred directed at him, and that’s what made it different. He’d lied – and that knowledge festered in my chest like a weeks-old sore, infecting my blood and driving me mad with a fever that spoke of anger and desperation.

  I was yelling at him as we fought, as we struck each other and flowed through our intricate dance with perfect finesse, but I cannot remember the words. I don’t even know if there were words – all I know is that he’d taken something from me by hiding the truth, and that I was angry not just with him but with myself for believing it. I went truly mad – I lost everything in the surging power of my rage.

  I don’t know how I did it, I don’t know how I won, but somehow I did. The first image I truly remember after rushing him was turning aside a blow and catching him by the throat. He grabbed at my hand, but I twisted in and kneed him in the gut, pushing the air from his lungs and throwing him to the floor, where I followed him, hand still clutching his neck. I pulled back my other hand, ready to end him as I had ended Tristan. He stared up at me with shock and surprise, and I paused.

  Sound came to me then – shouting from behind me, a chorused voice of distress. Other details came then too – the feeling of a hand trying to grab me, and light – light all around us, silver and glowing.

  He began to laugh as I held where I was, began to laugh because he and I both realized that I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t kill him.

  The hesitation was enough for him to take back the advantage. He convulsed beneath me so that I was thrown up and over his head to crash into the stone-hard dais. There was more shouting then, and I realized as I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling, that I lay at the foot of the throne.

  A wave of sickness rolled over me and made my stomach roil. I choked and started coughing, and then Robin was attacking me, brandishing something in his hand that flashed with a silver light very different from the light of the moon – a silver light that was dark, reflected off a blade almost black …

  Iron.

  “MOL!”

  “Stay back, he has iron!”

  The Hunters who had closed in around us, Faolan at their head ready to intervene, pulled back together in fear, leaving Robin and me alone before the throne. I tried to stand, but he struck the horn hilt of the dagger against my temple, and stars crashed through the roof of my vision, burning my sight away and leaving me in sooty darkness. I stumbled back, trying to gain my feet and failing, the sickness driving the fever out of me, severing me from the madness so that I was alone and helpless.

  He stood over me, hand raised high, and I saw again the silver of the dagger, the dark silver that hurt my eyes. He was snarling, ready to end it.

  I reached out desperately behind me and grabbed hold of something that bit deeply into the skin of my hand. I turned to look and saw the silver leaves of Oberon’s crown digging into my palm, drawing blood that wept down the side of the silver curves.

  I heard sound behind me and knew it was Robin. He pulled me toward him, flipped me over, and straddled me so that I couldn’t move. He raised the dagger again, and this time he couldn’t miss.

  I pulled the crown to me, interposing it between us, and said the only thing that came to mind:

  “Oberon – help!”

  Robin stared at the crown for half a second, his face melting into disbelief, and then silver light blinded me, and the last image I saw was Robin recoiling, throwing up his hands in front of his face, and then the weight of him was off of me.

  I was rolled to the side, completely in the power of some intense buffeting force. The crown was throwing silver light over the whole Hall, shining like the moon itself. It began to burn my skin, but I didn’t dare let go. I held it up before me and staggered to my feet. The sickness had passed, and now I felt the madness waiting for me once again.

  Robin had been thrown on his back, and the iron dagger lay beside his hand. I rushed over and kicked it away. A jolt of the sickness went through me again and I cringed back, but the dagger still skittered away into the distance, skipping over the Bower floor to rest under a table further up the Hall.

  I turned to Robin and put a foot on his chest, holding him down, though, dazed as he was, he didn’t seem able to make much in the way of resistance. He held up and a hand and grabbed my leg, trying to push it off.

  Another wave of sickness rolled through me and I almost lost the madness again, more in shock than anything else. I’d kicked the dagger away – was there still iron on him? I looked down at the hand grabbing my leg and saw it was bandaged, and that blood had soaked through it. My mind went back, unbidden, to the oath we’d made, the way he’d opened the cuts on his hands in order to make a vow … And the way Tristan’s wounds had looked, gaping and sick, after he’d been wounded by the iron.

  He’d used iron to bind me to him.

  I dug my foot harder into his chest, holding the crown up so that the silver light washed over him and me in equal measure, calming me and clearing my mind while seeming to hurt him.

  “What have you done?” I demanded. “Tell me.”

  “Mol,” said a voice to my right, a voice I knew to be Faolan but which I still couldn’t believe I was hearing. “Mol, wait, you –”

  “No!” I shouted, not looking, focused entirely on Robin. “I will not wait! What did you do? No, don’t do that – look at me, you PUCK! What did you do? How did you break the Bower?”

  Robin was squirming under my feet, gaining in strength, but I held him down still, leaning the full amount of my weight against his chest and pinning him like a bug.

  “Mol’Ilyn,” said a different voice, a deeper voice that sent a vibration through me and made me shiver. “I will deal with him. Please return my crown.”

  I turned slowly and saw Oberon standing behind me.

  “Where were you?” I asked. “I thought he’d – I though that –”

  “He didn’t,” the Erlking said gently, stepping forward again, watching me with wariness bordered with surprise and something else, something deeper I couldn’t understand or place.

  I realized I was still holding the crown in my hand, realized that it was still shining like a minor sun, bathing the whole room in silver light that had all the Hunters cowering back against the wall, covering their faces with their hands and cloaks, blinding them though not hurting them.

  “Time is short,” he said brusquely, and I realized that the deeper thing I hadn’t understood was fear, something I had never thought to see cross his face. “The Bower is broken, and we must act quickly to defend it.”

  Whatever trance was holding me broke and I staggered forward and held out the crown. He took it from me carefully, and as soon as it was out of my hands the silver light cut off and the only light left in the room was the lesser moonlight that came from the brazier fires that lined the Hall.

  Oberon looked the crown over and I saw tension arc through his shoulders as he noticed my blood on the leaf that had cut me. He glanced at me, then glanced down behind me at Robin, and something came together in his mind, some conclusion that turned his face from confusion, shock, and fear, into resignation and understanding.

  He wiped away the blood with his cloak, and placed the crown on his head.

  Immediately, silver light flared up and then settled down again, and the Bower around me seemed to flex like a live creature limbering its muscles. There was a distant thudding, a rumbling, and then Urden were flowing up from the entrance to the underground caverns.

  “Awake the Fae,” he said to them in clipped, no-nonsense words. “
They should be able to leave their chambers now. Bring them here; we gather for war.”

  The Urden as one let out a bellowing cry, and dozens of them streaked off into the dark gloom of the Bower, shouting for the upper levels to awake and gather. Others retreated down into the caverns, bellowing all the same, and still more moved toward the entrance to the Hall and looked out onto the field.

  Oberon strode forward and looked down at Robin, his face unreadable. Then in one quick motion he bent and ran his hand over the smaller man’s face.

  “Sleep,” he said simply.

  Robin relaxed completely, tension leaving him in a huge rush. Oberon grabbed him up and turned, depositing the Puck at the foot of the throne and turning back to the Hall at large.

  “Gwyn,” Oberon said, turning to the Hunter, who had come forward and looked already better – his wounds had begun to close themselves and were already smaller and looked days if not weeks old.

  “Oberon,” he growled, anger clear in his voice, “where have you been?”

  “Sealed away,” he said, something that seemed to confuse Gwyn as much as it confused me. He shot a glance at me. “Though no longer.”

  An Urden – a huge hulking gray-green mountain – emerged from the deep caverns and I couldn’t help but stare. Its skin was bare and showed hundreds of ritualistic scars that formed perfect lines and patterns that seemed to dance in the flickering moonlight of the silver fires. The creature’s eyes were a deep black with silver slits for pupils, and it bowed as it approached the Erlking.

  “This Urden was sent for.”

  “Yes – the Bower is under attack.”

  “What must this Urden do?”

  “The barrier holds for now, but it will fail. The greater enchantment containing the Bower outside the realm of men has been broken – she has brought sunlight, and it will continue to advance.”

  “How long does this Urden have?”

  “She will come soon – we have little time.”

  “How long needs my king?”

  “I will come to the field – hold until then.”

  The Urden nodded, stood, and moved off up the hall, followed by a long line of others. They gathered speed and broke into a run, pushing aside the tables that remained, throwing them against the wall so hard they burst into kindling. The leader let out a deafening bellow, and the others followed suit behind it, rushing up out of the deep cavern in a huge wave of gray-green bodies that looked like flesh and muscle stretched over boulders and gnarled roots. They raced toward the distant wood, spreading out as they went, and then disappeared into the trees with battle cries that woke birds and Sylphs and sent them spiraling into the sky.

  There was noise from above us then, and other Fae began to emerge from the higher levels, Ilyn and Paecsies and all the others, even the Caelyr. The Erlking gave more orders, organizing the chaos, until everything was in motion.

  “Gwyn!” Oberon called, motioning him forward, from where he’d gone to check over his Hunters. Some of them, too, had begun to heal, and those who hadn’t were being tended to by the Caelyr now. My eye was drawn to Faolan almost immediately, and I saw him mirroring the actions of Gwyn … of his father.

  The Hunter turned and moved through the crowd of flowing Fae to Oberon’s side, Faolan just behind him, and I moved that way as well, entering the clear space at the foot of the throne dais that none but the three of us and the Erlking seemed to dare enter.

  “What happened – tell me everything, Gwyn.”

  “I only know pieces.”

  “Give me what you can – any differences we may have are gone until she is safely away again.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Start with what you know.”

  “Her,” Gwyn said immediately, gesturing to me. I swallowed hard and suddenly questioned the wisdom of coming forward. What would they do to me? I’d helped Robin. Even though I’d been tricked, I’d helped him plan everything for months now. I was part of whatever had happened.

  Oberon turned to me and speared me with his gaze.

  “What about her?”

  “I tried to take her – she was in the field during the night. She was mine by right, by the accord we made, so I –”

  “Indeed,” Oberon interjected, looking back at Gwyn. “Why is this important?”

  “Because she distracted him while I broke the Treaty,” said someone else behind us.

  Oberon froze in place for a long second, and I felt the tension in the room ratchet up several notches, if such a thing were even possible. It was Robin who had spoken; we all turned to see him pulling himself to his feet, shaking off the effects of the Erlking’s spell. He was glaring Oberon, his eyes blazing with hatred.

  “Didn’t you realize that? Father?”

  I remember thinking quite clearly that I didn’t understand who he was addressing, so uncomprehending was I when he said that word. Then slowly I followed his gaze to Oberon.

  The blood had drained from the Erlking’s face.

  “What?” Robin asked, his tone mocking. “You didn’t think I’d find out eventually? You thought you could keep me here, bound to you, like a slave? Your own son?!”

  “How did you find out?”

  I quickly glanced around the area of the throne and realized there were hundreds of Fae and Hunters there with us, all staring at the scene unfolding before them as they girded for battle. A few of them had forgotten what they were doing and were staring at us, clearly having heard. Whispers spread through the Hall, and suddenly the silence deepened even as others farther down continued to move out into the field.

  I had to say something.

  “Titania,” I said, before Robin could continue. Oberon’s head jerked back to me, and I forced myself to continue, even under that gaze, which made me want to cower back, to run and never look at him again – this man who’d saved me, this man I had betrayed. “He tricked me and told me you killed Faolan, and then he told me that he was going to … to help me get revenge … but I didn’t know! I thought you’d done it!”

  Oberon was staring at me as if he couldn’t understand the words I was using.

  “He was working with her the whole time! Robin forced me to stay in the field after training me so that I could put up a fight. When Gwyn came, I fought back and he had to focus on me, and the Hunters did too – it gave Robin time to – I don’t know what he did – to do something –”

  The Erlking’s expression hadn’t changed, and I felt a watery feeling in my bowels that I realized distantly was shame so deep and all-consuming that it was threatening to take me over. But I had to get the whole story out, I had to do my best to give him the full picture, so he would understand –

  “When you saved me in the forest,” I forced out, “Robin was there, and he got left behind – and when he came back, he was looking at you like he hated you –”

  Robin began to laugh, a high cackle that made the hairs on my neck stand on end. It was the laugh of a madman, and it was this that finally silenced me.

  “It’s so perfect!”

  He was looking at me now, gazing at me like a fond teacher.

  “She knew! She knew all along! She could have stopped it! So many times! She could have stopped it all – and all she wanted to do was help me. All she wanted to do in the end … was … haha … all she wanted to do was kill you!”

  Oberon was looking back and forth between the two of us with wide eyes and more emotion than I’d seen on his face the entire time that I had lived in the Bower.

  A series of crashes from outside drew our attention to the Bower entrance, and I saw trees there swaying in agitation. I turned back in time to see Oberon stride to the throne and turn to stand before it, the crown of silver leaves shining in his auburn hair.

  “The Bower is under attack!”

  His voice rolled over us, somehow amplified, and I was sure that all the Fae throughout the entire Bower could hear him.

  “The Bower is under attack by the forces of the Faeri
e Queen – she has brought sunlight into our realm and she is poised to invade our home! We shall not let her do so. Let every Fae gird themselves for battle and hie thee out unto the plains, where we shall meet our ancient foe in strength. We fight for the safety of our homes and our way of life – stand ready to do battle!”

  A ragged cheer went up, and the gathered Fae scattered, though more than one cast a look over their shoulder toward Robin, still at the foot of the throne and unable to stand. Gwyn and his Hunters stayed, but the other Fae disappeared into the depths of the Bower, or else went straight out to the field.

  “We’re running out of time,” Gwyn said harshly.

  “I know,” Oberon said, striding forward. “But there’s something I need your help with.”

  “What?”

  “Not yet – I need to know more. You.”

  He pointed in my direction and I had to stop myself from shaking.

  “Come here.”

  I came.

  “Speak. How did you help him?”

  “He trained me,” I said quickly, speaking so fast that I was tripping over the words, trying to make my tongue work the way it should. “I – I saw him kill Faolan, and he said you’d made him do it –”

  Oberon’s face blazed with sudden fury, melting the cold composure that had defined him even now in the middle of a crisis. He turned back to Robin and moved toward him, and silver light suddenly burst into life around the younger man, closing in on him, holding him immobile, and causing the Puck to cry out in pain.

  “You killed a changeling?”

  “No!”

  We all turned back to the other side of the gathering and there was Faolan – beautiful as ever, his dark hair now bound behind his head with a strip of rawhide, and his hazel eyes shining from his face. He strode forward from where he’d been standing next to Gwyn and spoke directly to the Erlking. There was no fear or subservience in his bearing now – all traces of it had disappeared, and it had transformed him into a young man.

  “He didn’t kill me.”

  There was noise from outside, the sound of distant roars and what sounded like the snapping of trees and the crashing booms of heavy bodies falling to the ground.

  “Explain,” Oberon snapped.

  “I went through the madness,” he said quickly. “Two months ago, during the last full moon. I was outside after the Calling ceremony – Robin followed me, and when I stepped into the moonlight I – I lost my mind. I attacked him – he threw me down, but I came at him again – he broke my nose, but I kept coming. There was blood everywhere and I could – I could taste it in the air –”

  “Then he knocked him out,” I broke in. “That’s when I found him – that’s when I came out to meet Faolan, and he was there on the ground, and Robin was covered in blood. Robin saw me and he said he’d killed Faolan because you’d made him do it –”

  “Why?” Oberon broke in addressing Robin.

  “Because I wanted to hurt her,” Robin growled back at him, his face pulled back in a rictus of pain and satisfaction. “Because you liked her and I wanted to hurt her!”

  “Then why did you use me afterwards?” I asked, at a loss. “You could have left it there – what did you use me for? Why was I in the field?”

  Robin grinned through a face full of blood and matted hair.

  “Because Gwyn can’t hurt Oberon’s blood.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, a strange ringing echoing in my ears. I took a step back as I felt the floor sway beneath me, and realized I had turned to look at the Erlking, who had turned to look at me. I don’t know how I looked, but I’m fairly certain the expression of shock and disbelief that I must have assumed was mirrored on the face of the Faerie King.

  “I have not been with another woman,” the Erlking said simply, and then he turned back to Robin. “She is not mine.”

  Robin held up his hands and I saw again the bandage over the cut on his left hand, and now too the gaping wound that he had allowed to open on his right.

  “But I am,” he said with a grin. “And we swore an Oath of Binding. She carries my blood – she carries your blood. And when Gwyn threatened her, he spilled her blood and my blood, and at the edge of the Arden, right on the line that divides us, I spilt my blood as well, cutting myself with iron. It negated the Treaty – it broke everything.”

  Another flood of Ilyn rushed through the Hollowed Hall, this group dressed in heavy leather armor and bearing wicked clubs and carved staves. There was more noise from outside – more roars, more snapping branches – and then the Urden burst from the trees, retreating before an oncoming wave of creatures that shone like the sun.

  “Erlking, we’re out of time!”

  Gwyn had moved so that he could see better through the Hall out into the field, and his face was grim. “We have no choice,” he continued in his wolfish growl. “We need to meet her in the field.”

  “The sunlight will be there,” Oberon said, glancing at the other Hunters. “My children can withstand it, but you will not be able to fight without risking death to you and your Hunt.”

  “To stop her,” Gwyn growled, “we’ll risk it.”

  The Hunters around the Hall raised bronze spears, axes, and bows and shouted a triple cry of agreement, a shout that echoed around the Hall. The Ilyn were rushing past them, already spreading out into the field, and I saw the forms of Caelyr crawling down as well, moving toward the back of the hall with huge spools of woven silk, rolling entire balls of it, readying bandages.

  “Wait!” I shouted over the noise, motioning to Robin where he lay, still bound to the throne by the silver light the Erlking had cast. “We can’t leave him like this!”

  “She’s right!” Gwyn said. “Titania’s here for him as much as she is to destroy the Bower. If he gets loose –”

  “He’s under a new compulsion,” Oberon said. “It’s written all through him. It’s been festering for a while, but under the surface.”

  “That’s impossible – it would have to erase yours.”

  “It’s Titania’s work,” Oberon replied quickly, watching me even as he spoke to his fellow king. “She got to him when last we went to meet with her – when Robin was separated from me. I didn’t see it until now – I had no reason to look for it.”

  “How is that possible – you had him under compulsion to stay with you! You said he was loyal!”

  “I knew it!” Robin shrieked in triumph. “She told me you had compelled me to stay with you – she told me that my real place was with her!”

  “She lied to you,” Gwyn snarled, startling Robin. “How on earth could you believe that? You ungrateful little –?”

  “Leave him be,” Oberon said. “He cannot take responsibility for what he doesn’t know.”

  “So tell him! There might not be any goddam time left!”

  “She told me you’d try to trick me with lies,” Robin sneered. “She warned me that you would try to keep me with you. You’ve always tried to keep me here – I’m supposed to be with her, I’m supposed to be pure, I belong in the light of day!”

  “You belong with me!” Oberon shouted frantically, his desperation bleeding through his voice and forcing me back a step as I watched him with fear. He was close to breaking. “I won’t lose you again – I won’t let her take you like this!”

  He threw out his hands toward Robin and grabbed his head, holding it in place. Robin struggled madly against the grip but couldn’t free himself.

  “You’re right, Gwyn. Damn the consequences - she broke the Treaty. There’s nothing holding us back from telling him the truth. Will you help me?”

  “My pleasure.”

  Gwyn threw out the hand not blistered and burned by the sunlight, and pure streaks of midnight black intertwined with the silvery moonlight that flowed from Oberon’s crown. Together the strands wrapped around Robin, pulling him closer to the rival kings. Robin threw back his head and began to scream wordlessly, and the ends of the strands wove together and plunged
into his open mouth, rushing in like smoke pulled through a chimney.

  Faolan and I stood by, helpless, as more and more Fae rushed by, watching the proceedings with something akin to horror, but still following their kings’ commands and making for the field, to stand between the Queen and their home. Robin’s screams cut off, though his body continued to twist and writhe in agony, and both Oberon and Gwyn ap Nudd looked to be straining against invisible forces that pressed down on them from all sides.

  “By the blood!” Gwyn growled, barely able to stand. “The compulsion is woven in with your original one, we need to free him from both if we free him from one!”

  “We can’t break the original compulsion – he can’t remember this!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’ll remember what she did to him! He’ll remember what she tried to do to purify him; he’ll remember losing his mind!”

  I watched on, unable to look away, feeling Faolan’s equal amazement at the open display of emotion. Oberon’s face had fallen into deep lines of desperation, and the moonlight he’d been weaving around his son lit his face from below and made him look like an ancient statue.

  The whole reason for all that he had done now lay open and on display before me – everything from the Bower to Robin to gathering the changelings every year to the way the training had been created. It was about him and his son – about never allowing anyone else to suffer through the pain his son had.

  “Father!” roared Faolan, looking back toward the entrance to the Bower.

  The Queen’s army had emerged from the tree line. Row upon row of them were advancing toward the Bower, and though the moonlight Fae were lined up before them, the Urden were being forced back toward the Bower.

  “Oberon!” roared Gwyn ap Nudd. “For the first and only time in your whole cursed life, listen to me!”

  Oberon’s gray-green eyes met Gwyn’s black.

  As one, they turned to Robin again and plunged their hands through the swirling midnight-moonlight magic and grasped his head with both hands. The Puck began to shake as if in the middle of a seizure, his arms and legs flailing around him uncontrollably.

  Golden light blazed out of him, throwing Faolan and me off our feet. The world faded out and then was brought back in full by the heavy crashing sensation of being slammed into the rock-solid wood of the Bower floor. The madness kicked in and I reached out to touch the life of the Bower; the heat and life of the tree flowed through me and kept me conscious. I pulled myself back to my feet and saw that the throne and everything within twenty paces of it had been blasted back as though struck by lightning. Robin lay in the center of it all, flat on his back, arms and legs spread out and face pointed upward. Silence rang through my head as all of my focus narrowed in on Robin’s chest, looking for evidence that he still lived.

  His chest rose; he was breathing.

  “He’s alive,” I said to no one in particular. I went forward and stood over him, then turned and saw Oberon and Gwyn pulling themselves to their feet, and repeated myself. “He’s alive.”

  Caelyr rushed forward, looking him over, wrapping him in silk.

  “It’s done,” Gwyn said.

  “No,” Oberon said, his face terrifying. “Not yet.”

  He turned and left the Bower. The rest of us followed hastily in his wake.

  We passed through row after row of Fae as we crossed from the Hall onto the dewy grass of the field. The sky above us was still split in that horrible rent that showed half a universe of blue sky and half a universe of stars. The Fae moved aside for us as we came through, and I saw all of them take heart as the two kings came to take control in the face of the approaching sunlight.

  The main force of her army was made of creatures that looked like Ilyn somehow gone wrong, the ones that I had seen before. They were too tall, and they were so thin they looked emaciated, all of their bones standing out beneath their skin. Their eyes were slanted and their ears jutted back from their faces to points, and an identical sneer seemed to be plastered on each and every face.

  “Elves,” said Faolan, sneering the word.

  The two forces straddled the dividing line, Oberon and the denizens of the Bower on one side and Titania’s force on the other. Silence fell between them as all three monarchs held up hands that quieted their respective followers. Slowly, the three moved forward and met in the center of the field, directly on either side of the split between light and dark.

  She looked as beautiful and terrible as she had the last time I had seen her. She stood tall and regal, her auburn hair flowing down about her shoulders and her green eyes merciless like the noon sun in summer. She was clothed in golden robes that burned and shone like a polished mirror, and her radiance was blinding.

  “Where is Robin?” she asked.

  “Being cared for,” Oberon replied coldly, “as always.”

  She sneered at him, looking beautiful even as she did that.

  “Have you told him yet that you’ve been holding him captive?”

  “I’ve told him everything,” Oberon answered with perfect composure.

  Titania’s eyes widened, but then she regained her composure.

  “Good,” she said. “Then give him to me. Give him to me, and give me all the changelings that you’ve stolen from the world of men.”

  The Ilyn immediately began to hiss and growl at her, and several of the Urden who had made it back battered and bruised openly laughed. The strange creatures that formed the core of Queen’s army, the ones that Faolan had called Elves, snarled back in response and nocked bronze-headed arrows to their bows.

  But Oberon held up a hand, and slowly all the Fae, even those born in the light of day, quieted and watched him.

  “Leave,” Oberon said quietly, but with rock-hard hatred clearly visible beneath his calm composure. “Your plan has failed. You came here for the changelings, but you shall not have them. You came here for Robin, but you shall not have him. You came here thinking I would be sealed away in the Bower, that you would be able to walk right in and claim my children for your own, and that too has failed. You thought that Gwyn ap Nudd, King of the Night and Leader of the Wild Hunt, would not interfere, or else would stand aside. He stands with me, as he did before.”

  “And as I’ll bloody do again.”

  “So you have no place here,” the Erlking continued, the force of his will so immense I couldn’t even imagine standing before it. “You have no claim to those whom I raised, those whom I have saved. If you cross into my Bower, you come bringing blood and death that will kill more than either of us can ever save. Go back. Let us now, all three of us, renew the Treaty. Let all three of us protect the Fae as we once swore to do, and as we can swear to do again.”

  He fell silent and I felt a swelling in my heart that could only have been pride.

  Titania stirred and moved. I tensed, as did Faolan and all the Fae behind us. The Sunlight Fae that had come with her drew their bowstrings taut and looked ready to raise and loose their arrows at the slightest twitch.

  She sneered at Oberon, and I felt waves of loathing wash over me.

  “The changelings belong to me.”

  She moved faster than I could follow, and sent a bolt of pure golden light straight through Oberon’s heart.