I didn’t think that was what she had planned for Aeslinn.
Yet this was the guy who had brought down a mountain—hell, almost a whole mountain range—trying to bury us. I felt another shiver run through me. This . . . wasn’t going to go well, was it?
As if in answer, a deafening crack caused the staircase to shudder, hard enough to send a cascade of ice down the stairs. And to send us tobogganing down with it, maybe a quarter of the way, before Pritkin managed to catch us. He braced on the now ice-free rock at a turn of the stairs while I held on to his arm and Aeslinn’s voice boomed like we were in an echo chamber.
“Careful, Sea Witch! You come perilously close to naming me coward!”
“Indeed?” Nimue’s tones rang out, clear as a bell. “That was not my intent in the slightest.”
“That is fortunate, for your—”
“I meant to state it outright.”
The room above exploded in loud voices, along with what sounded like actual explosions. Another crack caused the rest of the ice from above to suddenly cascade down the steps. Onto us.
“You dare—” Aeslinn thundered while Pritkin thrust me at the wall, shielding me with his body. And somehow holding his position while flakes of the stuff burst around us, hitting the curve and going everywhere. And burning whatever they touched, like sparks from a too-close bonfire.
“Yes, I dare!” Nimue’s furious tones shivered across my skin like a physical thing. “As you have dared, for centuries, making war with me by proxy, not willing to face me yourself! Too long have you squeezed us, forcing the creatures of the dark onto our lands, allowing the abominations—whom you armed—to burn our towns, kill and ravage our people—”
“Abominations?” The contempt dripped. “I should think you would welcome them. Everyone knows your peo
ple are nothing but mongrels, intermarrying with vermin, destroying—”
“Have a care!”
“Oh, I will. I do. And when my armies march into Avalon, I will put your half-breeds to the sword, along with any polluted blood I find—”
“Your armies march only in your dreams, Dirt King.” There was a savage form of mirth in the words now. “You will never have the numbers. The only way to take my throne is if I offer it to you—”
“As if anyone would want that collection of bogs and marshes—”
“—and I do!”
The room above suddenly went deadly quiet.
“Face me in combat,” Nimue challenged. “Now, tonight, according to the ancient rules you’re so fond of. And we will settle this. The winner becomes ruler of both kingdoms; the loser . . . receives the appropriate funeral rites. Duel me, King of the Wastelands. Or, once and for all, declare yourself coward before all Faerie!”
There was no sound for a long moment; even straining, all I could hear was my own frantic heartbeat.
“The only thing I will declare is your line extinct, once I finish with you.”
The room detonated, in shouts and curses and more of those strange crashes. And then Arthur’s voice cut through the din, loud as a foghorn. “If you want to kill each other, do it outside!”
The fey must have agreed, because the next noises echoing down the stairs were bootheels on stone, and a lot more shouting.
Pritkin crawled back up the stairs again, to peer out the top. “They’re leaving,” he said. “Everyone’s heading for the Table—”
“Even Arthur?”
He nodded. “And he’s not wearing his sword.”
“So what are we doing here?” I asked, jumping up. “We can get it in the confusion. Come on!”
And then somebody kicked me in the chest.
It was just that fast, and wholly unexpected because there was no one there. And just that painful, since it felt more like someone had just driven a boot through my body, the shock alone overwhelming. I fell backward, clutching for purchase I couldn’t find on the slippery stairs and couldn’t see.
Because everything had just gone black.