Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (90 page)

“No, you can’t,” Memory agreed.

Memory dropped her glow sticks into the water, watching then float down until they were like a small, pale stars in the depths. Will nodded, and with a deep breath, he dived down.

Shonae fell again, her body sliding under the water and her eyes slipping closed. Memory grabbed the faun, pulling her close and forcing her face to the air. She leaned back, floating with the faun on top of her, kicking slowly to the shore. Shonae was a dead weight in her arms and almost pulled her under as well, but Memory held tight, handfuls of the fae’s soft white fur held tight in her fists.

Arms and lungs aching, Memory’s feet finally touched ground again, and she walked the fae out of the water until the two of them fell with a splash in the shallows.

Panting and choking, Shonae looked up at Memory from where she lay in the water, her white woolly hair floating around her face like a halo. “Why did you save me? Before in the other world, and again now? Why bring me back away from Caliburn? I thought you would leave me to drift away alone in the water. I’m just a monster after all, aren’t I?”

Memory blinked the water from her eyes and gave the faun a sharp look. “You really think I would have just left you there to die? No. You’re not a monster. I get it now, really. Things aren’t just black and white, seelie and unseelie, human and monster. That’s why what I’m going to do is to stop all the fae from dying. Save all the fae from the lack of magic that is killing them. All of them, seelie
and
unseelie.”

“You would really save us all?”

Memory sat on the pebbles and watched as Will’s head emerged from the water to take a breath, then dive down again.

“That’s my plan,” Memory said, almost a whisper. “I just hope that will be enough to stop a war.”

Shonae pushed herself out of the water, sitting on her knees. She reached out, placing her palm against Memory’s chest for a short moment in a gesture that seemed strange to Memory.
Must be a fae thing.

“If that is truly your plan, if you think you can save us all, I want to help you. I will stay with you.”

Memory saw the glint of something beneath the water.

“Thanks, Shonae, but it looks like you will have to stay at least a few steps away from me.”

Will’s face came up from under the black water again, close to shore. He stood up out of the water, rivulets running down his hair and over his chest. In one hand he clutched a bright steel sword, shining with the yellow of the glow stick in his other hand.

He strode into the shallows and knelt in the water before Memory, his chest panting with the effort of diving deep in the lake. He placed the sword across her lap.

“I believe this is yours,” he said. “The sword of King Arthur.”

He shook his head, staring at it with a small smile on his mouth. The sword was beautiful, just as it had been illustrated in Memory’s history books. A huge amethyst was embedded in the hilt and the blade still sharp and untarnished, no rust or damage from its centuries underwater.

Shonae skittered backwards quickly until she reached what must have been a comfortable distance, about three body lengths away.

Memory wrapped her hand carefully around the hilt and stood up, lifting the sword with her. It felt perfect in her hand, made for her. It made the magic inside her
sing
.

“We have to get back to the castle, get Caliburn to Eloryn and the human army,” Memory said.

Memory held up the sword, staring at her reflection in the shining metal. “I just hope we don’t have to use it.”

Memory’s breath hitched in and out, and there was stitch stabbing at her ribcage. The sprint up the narrow stairs into the palace left her dizzy. Her adrenaline was up and her nerves were stretched thin. But she had to keep moving.

Will followed close behind, and Shonae a little behind that, as Memory led them through the old keep section of the castle, trying to follow the sounds of battle that seemed to echo from every direction. The tunnel from the lake emerged behind a wall on the second floor and the halls were devoid of life, not a human or fae to be seen.

Following the sounds of fighting, Memory took a shortcut into the Round Room to find an entrance down to the front of the palace.

Memory was first through the door. Momentum carried her forward even after she saw Nyneve appear before her. She was simply going too fast to stop.

Memory’s bare feet skidded on the slick marble floor, wet from her dripping clothes. She slid straight toward the unseelie queen. Nyneve laughed a husky chuckle that sent shivers down Memory’s spine.

Nyneve’s fairy gold sword flashed in the dimness.

Pain shot through Mem’s entire body.

The clang of dropped metal battered her eardrums.

She went hot, then cold. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

She tried to raise Caliburn but the sword was on the floor, skidding away from her, still clutched in her fingers.

Her mind spun.

My hand is on the floor.
She couldn’t comprehend.
My hand is on the floor.

Memory screamed, clutching at where Nyneve’s blade had severed her at the wrist. She fell, her legs sprawling underneath her.

Everyone was screaming around her, for her. Nyneve was laughing still, louder now.

“Thought you could come back and kill me with damned Arthur’s sword?” she said.

“That’s not why I came back.” Memory gasped the words out, pain making everything difficult. Blood oozed from her wrist in small spurts timed to the beat of her heart.

She couldn’t even move as Nyneve swung for her again.

Will had gone after Caliburn. He ran back to her, sword in hand, but was too far away.

The sword meant for Memory struck into something soft in front of her eyes. The soft white body of Shonae.

Nyneve’s sword took her in the chest, slicing right through. Dark blood sprayed across the unseelie queen’s diamond gown as she wrenched her weapon out of the faun. Her gaze was cold and distant, as though the young faun was nothing but a nuisance to her.

Shonae slumped to the floor, her dark eyes going pale.

“No!” Memory cried out.

Shonae had jumped in to save Memory, had died for her. Memory could still hear in her head the fae’s desperate cries from when they had first trapped her, so scared for her life. Now that life was gone. An animalistic scream of pain and rage sounded from her lips.

Nyneve didn’t even hesitate to thrust her sword again. This time, Will stepped between Nyneve and Memory, blocking with Caliburn. The fairy queen scowled, adjusting her swing and sweeping her sword away before it made contact with the iron.

“You don’t have to do this,” Memory said. “There’s another way, a way to save all the fae.”

“Do you really think I would agree to a new pact with humans?”

“No, that’s not—” Mem protested but Nyneve was not finished, her venomous words continued to tumble out in a calm, calculating tone.

“You’ve treated the unseelie fae as monsters for too long. The humans will be my slaves. The blood of the people of Avall will save the fae. It will protect me and my followers as I take over the rest of the world too, destroying every last human. Then, then the fae will be saved.”

“No... Work with me. Can save everyone. Humans, fae, don’t have to die.” Memory’s eyes were losing focus and she was struggling to stay conscious. Her own blood formed a growing pool on the ground around her, mixing with the blood of the faun. She managed to get her belt off and used it to tourniquet her wrist.

Nyneve kept her eyes on Caliburn, where Will held it steady in front of her face. She swayed slightly, sidestepping casually, testing him, but he kept the point aimed strong. The unseelie queen’s own sword wavered close by, threatening, but not daring to meet the iron.

“You do have to die, every one of you. Humans have always been a scourge. It’s past time you were finally removed for good.”

Memory tried to reason. “Myrddin was half human, you loved him.”

Fire flashed in Nyneve’s eyes at the mention of that name. “And he betrayed me. He chose humans over his dominant unseelie side, chose Arthur instead of me. Even though Arthur never loved him in the same way.” Nyneve’s deep voice was low, the hurt in it clear. She edged forward as she spat the words, but Will kept her in check, forcing her away until she backed up into the wall. “I still loved him anyway, and when he went missing it took a millennium of study and sacrifices to find he’d lost himself in the Veil. When I finally found him, and pulled him out, I discovered he’d gone into the Veil to save himself from a Branding. A Branding from his precious humans, a Branding he got defending Arthur from his own poisonous family.”

The words floated around Memory, her mind drifting in a haze of pain. She stared from Shonae’s crumpled body, to her hand where it lay, just an inanimate object, nothing but dead flesh.

Poetic justice perhaps
, Memory thought.
To lose the hand that once cut off the hand of another.

“Once I’d found him, we barely had time to say goodbye before the Brand took Myrddin. He let humans sway his heart and he is forever gone because of it. I made sure Maellans have paid for their treachery over and over again throughout the years and now I will finish the last of them.”

Will growled, a ferocity in him bringing out his animal side. He had backed Nyneve into a corner, and he was going to kill her, Memory knew it. Part of her wanted him to kill her, to cut her as deeply as possible, to claim vengeance for Shonae and so many others. The rest of her never wanted to see death again.

Will chanced a glance back at Memory, and the fury and worry in his eyes scared her. He placed the tip of Caliburn against Nyneve’s neck. Memory saw a small bead of blood well up there, dark against her silver flesh. She heard Nyneve’s hiss of pain as the wound sizzled. She transformed right in front of their eyes, becoming Hope.

“Go on, little boy,” she taunted, looking just like Memory, wearing the black broken-heart t-shirt. “Where’s your guts, you little pet? You animal.”

The glamour flickered and faded, the strength of the iron in Caliburn too strong for Nyneve to hold onto her magic. She frowned at that, a scowl that twisted her serpentine skin. Her dark hair flew out behind her as she roared.

Her sword flashed in her hand, moving faster than a normal human could dodge.

She struck out at Will’s chest, but he was no normal human, Memory knew. Not anymore. His time with the fae had changed him, made him stronger. He jumped backwards, twirling and striking back. Nyneve cried furiously at him, dodging away around the round table, holding her weapon away from Will’s.

“Beirsinn fair nalldomh!” she yelled, reaching her arm toward Memory. Memory knew those words, but the realization came too late as her own iron knife weakly wriggled free and clattered across the floor toward Nyneve. She scooped it up, angered by the weakness of her magic. She faced Will again, fairy gold sword in one hand and iron blade in the other.

Will’s next swing was met with iron against iron. Nyneve swept the smaller blade upwards, channeling the motion of Will’s strength away in a smooth movement. Sparks flew.

Will grunted with effort and Nyneve faded back into her form as Hope, taunting him as he followed her across the floor, their eyes locked on one another’s as the battle between them began in earnest.

Memory knew that Nyneve was taunting him on purpose, baiting him into anger so he would not think, only react.

Memory knew that was what she had to do now. She had no time left to think. She was unsteady on her feet, her reflexes were slowing and she could barely see past the thin gray darkness seeping in at the edges of her vision.

Kneeling there on the floor in the sticky blood, she knew she had to act now, before she fell, and all was lost.