The House Of Gaian

you can defeat the Witch’s Hammer? He’ll crush you, bitch! You’re not strong enough to defeat the Master Inquisitor!”
    She stopped walking and looked at him over her shoulder. “I’m strong enough to defeat anyone. Haven’t you realized it yet, Inquisitor? The only thing stronger than Death’s Mistress is Death itself.” She looked at the Fae Lord. “Don’t move the bodies until one of Death’s Servants gathers the spirits. That will keep the ghosts leashed to the flesh and contain them in this place.”
    “As you command, Gatherer,” the Fae Lord replied.
    Ubel screamed at her as she walked away. Kept screaming at her even after she left the warehouse.
    Kept screaming as the Fae who had guarded him and the others silently moved away from the barrier and took positions in front of the warehouse doors.
    He screamed and screamed as he stared at his dead body, but no one heard him, no one saw him.
    Except the other ghosts.
    Morag walked over to where the dark horse waited. “I should change out of these clothes. I imagine it’s one of the few outfits Ashk actually likes.”
    “Keep it,” Padrick said quietly. “The skirt is designed for riding. Besides, your own clothes are already packed in the saddlebags. You’ll need them when you reach Willowsbrook.” He made an effort to smile. “If Ashk misses having that outfit, she can order another one—which will please the village seamstress and her lady’s maid.”
    She rested one hand on the dark horse’s neck. “I don’t need escorts.”
    “You’ll have them anyway.”
    She didn’t bother to sigh. Padrick had given in when she’d insisted she didn’t have the appetite for a meal, but he wasn’t going to yield about the escorts.
    “It wasn’t enough,” she said abruptly.

    “What wasn’t enough, Morag?”
    She turned away from him and placed her hands on the saddle as if to mount. But she stayed there, staring at leather instead of the man.
    “They tortured. They maimed. The witches and other women they’d taken had suffered. But the Black Coat and the others ... They didn’t even hear Death’s whisper before they died. Was that justice, Padrick? Did that balance the scales for all the harm they’ve done?”
    “Would knowing they suffered balance the scales?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe.”
    Padrick placed his hand over hers. “If you wanted them to suffer, then you succeeded, Morag. Until they pass through the Shadowed Veil, they will know something men like that would consider worse than death.”
    Slowly, reluctantly, she turned her head to look at him. “What could be worse than death?”
    “Defeat.”

 

     
     

Chapter 42

 

     
     

     
    waning moon
     
    Adolfo slowly crumpled the letter, working it until it was a ball enclosed in his fist.
    The Arktos barons had failed him. Failed him . Instead of continuing the fight until there wasn’t a man standing, instead of destroying as many of the enemy in Sylvalan as they could, instead of fighting on to keep Sylvalan’s forces divided, they had surrendered . Put down their weapons and crawled to the witches with their tails between their legs. And they were given their lives while his Inquisitors, his men , were taken away and hunted down like animals, slaughtered by the Fae.
    He wouldn’t even know that much if the messenger he’d sent north hadn’t been delayed by a few critical hours because his horse had thrown a shoe. The man had arrived in time to learn of the surrender and the Inquisitors’ deaths, had thought quickly enough to lie by claiming to have been sent by the southern barons to request news about the fighting in the north.
    So he had the report that had been written for the enemy, had the enemy’s taunts and boasts burning behind his eyes, had confirmation, based on the questions his messenger had been asked, that the midland barons and some of the Clans among the Fae were gathered around Willowsbrook, waiting for him.
    They could wait. And they could die. He wasn’t going to Willowsbrook with sniveling barons from Sylvalan or craven barons from Arktos. Wolfram was behind him, and Wolfram would not fail him. They would annihilate the army Liam had gathered. They would break the Mother’s Hills and crush them into dust— and everything that lived in that foul place. They would extinguish magic once and for all.

    But before he brought his whole army up, he would take a small company of men and ride up to the very edge of Willowsbrook, and he