Leanan Sidhe's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

The Leanan Sidhe left Alex's cottage with two claims on her blood and no clean path between them. The Fomorian voice had not gone quiet. It pulled at her the way a hook pulls at a fish. It wanted a gift. Something dead and useful. She knew what she had to give. She went back to the salt ring where the black horse lay. The Puca was still and cold. Its gold eyes had gone dull. She lifted the body by the mane. It was lighter than a horse should be, because she had already taken what made it heavy. An emptied skin. A husk. She dragged it across the peat toward the low ground where the Fomorian voice was strongest. The warlord met her at a broken stand of reeds. He was taller than any tree there. His armor was welded from old broken shields. A red eye burned in the center of his chest and threw pink light across the water. He did not bow. He did not speak first. He waited. She dropped the horse at his feet. "Proof," she said. "I brought you the Puca. Now help me take the bog man from the witch." The warlord looked down at the body. He nudged it with one clawed foot. The head rolled. He laughed once, low, like stones grinding. "Empty," he said. "You drank it dry before you thought of us. You bring us a bag. Not a life." "It is a Puca. It is old blood." "It is your leftovers." His red eye flared. "We do not follow your plan, little corrupted thing. You do not command here. You bring us a full kill or you bring us the witch's throat. Choose." She opened her mouth to bargain. The peat shook under her. At the low place, water pushed up through the moss and filled the stone cradle set deep in the earth. Green light rose from it. Danu stepped out of the light, small and barefoot, a crown of flowers on her white hair. She did not look at the Leanan Sidhe. She looked past her, into the reeds, where three bog hags had gathered to watch. "Old rules," Danu said to the hags. Her voice was low and level. "No Fomorian takes ground here while I am birthing. You know the agreement. You witnessed it before her mother was named." The hags nodded, slow, wet grins fixed. Danu turned her green eyes on the warlord. "This one is my lost child," she said, and touched the Leanan Sidhe's belly through the air between them. "Twisted, but mine. You do not buy her with promises." The warlord spat. The red light in his chest went out like a snuffed lamp. He stepped back into the reeds and was gone. The Leanan Sidhe stood over the empty horse with no ally left. Danu was already turning away toward the cradle. The bog man was still Florence's, and now she would have to take him alone.