Red Hood's Revenge

as the one that struck Sleeping Beauty. They choose to sleep until humanity finds peace or until this world comes to an end. Would you care to wager which will come first?”
    “You’re alone?” Roudette tried to keep the hope from her voice. A single peri couldn’t fight all of Arathea. Once the people learned the truth, they might still destroy her.
    “I’m tired.” Zestan spoke plainly, the weight of her desolation striking Roudette like a blow. “We will never return home. If paradise is forbidden to us, then I will remake this land into paradise.”
    She took the zaraq weight from Naghesh and examined it. “For a year Naghesh and I worked to duplicate this poison.”
    “Why?” Roudette asked, genuinely curious. “You’re peri. I thought you could wave your hand and crush this entire palace to dust. Why go to such lengths?”
    “I could destroy Lakhim and all who serve her,” Zestan said, “but it would turn this nation against me. Better to let them believe a deev has escaped and loosed this chaos on the world. When the time comes, I will break Talia’s curse myself. Her story will end the way it always should have ended. Talia will return to lead Arathea.”
    “Under your control,” Roudette said, looking to Naghesh.
    “An elegant plan, don’t you think?” said Naghesh. “We don’t even need to waste an assassin this time. Once we send Talia into the palace, I’ll force her to poison herself and trigger the curse.”
    “War would have come eventually,” said Zestan. “Fairies against humans. How many would have died on both sides? All fairykind watched what happened in Lorindar, how the humans forced my descendants into their treaty, imprisoning them in the middle of their island. The spread of the fairy church, the original curse against Talia and her family, these are only a few of the steps we’ve taken to prevent such a thing from ever happening again, but it’s not enough.”
    Her eyes were so wide, shining like black pearls. “My kin may have turned away from this world, but I will not. There will be no war. There will be only paradise, and you will be a part of it.”
    Zestan actually believed what she was saying. Believed it and wanted Roudette to believe as well. Roudette had seen it many times growing up. Her father had been like that. So convinced of his own righteousness he thought simply pronouncing those beliefs to the world would be enough to persuade all who listened.
    “The people will fight you,” Roudette said. “There will always be wolves.”
    “The wolves shall bow down before the angels,” Zestan responded. “If they refuse, the angels will destroy them.”
    Roudette closed her eyes. She had never won an argument with her father, either.

CHAPTER 22

    T HE WILD HUNT CLOSED IN FROM ALL SIDES of the garden. Danielle thought about fleeing back through the pipe, but the hunters would only catch them. There were so many, bodies pressed together until she couldn’t see the walls beyond. So Danielle waited, sword held ready.
    “I could summon the dwarves,” Snow offered.
    “Not yet.” Danielle doubted Snow had the strength to call up her demonic helpers. Even if she could, Danielle wasn’t convinced they would be strong enough to fight the Wild Hunt.
    She was surprised to see women among the hunters. Though fewer in number, their appearance varied as much as the men’s. One wore hide armor trimmed in brown fur, while another rode bare-chested, carrying only an enormous wooden spear. A third wore a long Hiladi hunting jacket, broad-shouldered and trimmed in copper.
    Danielle lowered her weapon. “I would speak with you.” She searched them all, trying to identify a leader. Did anyone from the original Hunt still survive?
    “What are you doing?” Snow whispered.
    “Do you remember what Mother Khardija said at the temple?” she asked. “That the Hunt sometimes spares those with the courage to face them?”
    “I remember it’s a stupid thing to risk your life on,” Snow said. “I never should have translated that for you.”
    Danielle managed a smile.
    A man garbed in green rode forward. A golden horn hung at his side, and he carried a simple wooden long-bow. His horse was a sooty chestnut, as though black ash had been sprinkled over the animal’s back and sides. Both horse and rider studied Danielle, though neither one so much as breathed.
    She sheathed her sword and stepped forward, drawing on all of her training to present herself as calm