The rain fell hot and heavy, landing in thick globs against my skin. All around me the Fae were screaming angrily, yelling to be heard over the crowd. I didn't yell. I whispered, and the world fell silent around me.

"Zephan," I said. The crowd parted around me and I saw him standing in the middle of the field. I saw Jack collapsed on the ground near him and Kieran held firmly in the grasp of two of Zephan's lackeys. I recognized one of them as the man who'd thrown water over me, after I'd vomited on myself. I smiled viciously in his direction. Clearly, Kieran's speech had not gone well.

"Ah, my lady of death," Zephan called. "You're just in time to see me made king." He gestured a man who looked like a priest forward.

"No," I said. The priest stopped moving and turned to me. His eyes widened in fear and I knew that he was the first person there to realize that something had changed, that I wasn't the same person they had seen the night of the ball. I was so much more. "You will never rule this land."

Zephan laughed. I saw people in the crowd grow uneasy. It was only his arrogance that stopped him from seeing what I was. It was his arrogance that made him think he could get away with murder. It was his arrogance that would get him killed. I knew that, because I was the one who was going to do it.

"The land has called to me," I said, "and I have answered its call."

The rain grew warmer against my skin and someone in the crowd gasped. I raised a hand to my cheek and felt the suddenly hot, thick moisture there. I drew my hand away and looked at the crimson liquid coating my fingertips. Blood. Everywhere it rained but as the water touched my skin it turned to blood.

"What...?" Zephan asked, suddenly sounding unsure.

"You have broken the first law," I said. I started walking, slowly, down through the crowd towards Zephan. No one stood in my way. No one dared. "You have committed the worst of crimes. You have betrayed your people and offended the land itself."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"You murdered the king," I said, bluntly. "As though regicide isn't bad enough, he was your grandfather."

"I didn't..." he began.

"Don't," I said angrily. "Do you think the walls were ignorant?" He looked at me blankly so I guess he did think that. "The entire court rested on the backs of the dead," I explained. "Their spirits were woven into the very walls. They see everything." I had a sudden flash back to the old man in the bed. The king. I remembered the way the veins stood out on the back of his hands as he struggled against Zephan. He struggled helplessly, unable to push Zephan away, unable to stop him. I remembered, all too vividly what it had felt like to be at the mercy of Zephan's hands. Mercy. As though he had any.

"But so long as there wasn't a member of the Deadly Aristocracy around, they could tell no one." I felt my mouth twist into a bitter smile. It was a smile that I'd never smiled before, because it wasn't my smile. It was a smile that came from all of the dead who were gathered inside me. All the victims. All the people who had been made into victims by people who thought they could get away with it. I smiled, but it wasn't the kind of smile that held an inch of friendship or kindness. It was the smile of a thousand victims banded together, as they realized that they weren't victims anymore. We're not victims.

I let the painful memories flood through me. They hurt, all of us hurt. We hurt so much that I could feel that pain leaking out across my lips. I wanted to make him hurt. I wanted to hear the land echo with the sounds of his screams. I wanted him to feel what he had done to me, only I wanted it to be worse. A thousand times worse, because he was the one who made me feel this way.

It wasn't just the fact that he had tortured me, or killed the king. It was the fact that he had taken innocence, and I knew - the part of me that was the wild hunt knew and it whispered it through my soul – that the wild hunt was made up of the blood of innocents.

The thing is though, even as our blood fell from the sky, it became corrupted. The very act of spilling our blood changed us. We weren't innocent anymore, or kind. We were angry. We were tortured and we wanted to cause our torturers pain. We wanted to hurt them, not only for hurting us, but for making us like them, for making us want to cause pain. That's how they really killed us.

I smiled at Zephan and it was a smile that held no mercy. I smiled his future. I smiled death.

"But you're here," Kieran said.

"Yes," I said. I didn't take my eyes off Zephan. "I'm here." I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. "I heard them calling out to me, weakened, and trapped. I heard them and I have answered." Finally, I stood right in front of Zephan, close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I'd wanted.

I didn't want to touch him, though. My senses had been filled with him for too long. I didn't want to touch him, I just wanted him gone.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"It's not what I'm going to do," I whispered. "It's what I've already done."

"And that is?" I heard his voice waver between a forced confidence and fear. It was the fear I wanted from him. Complete unadulterated terror. Only then would he be allowed release. It's what the dead wanted.

A part of me railed against that. No, I screamed at the back of my mind. No, I don't want to be like him. But another part of me, a stronger part, a part that wasn't made up of the dead or the wild hunt, as much as I might wish it was... that part of me wanted him to feel the pain of a thousand deaths.

A thousand deaths. I had more than that, running through me now. The souls of the dead tearing through me. Screaming, all of them screaming. They screamed for justice and they screamed their agony and the shouting echoed through my mind until I felt like I was losing myself, only I was still there, standing in the middle of it, riding the wild hunt.

"The dead demanded justice," I said. "The land demanded the wild hunt." I took another step closer, bridging the distance between Zephan and me. I felt his breath tickle along my scalp as it parted my hair, that's how close I stood. I repeated what I'd been saying all along, waiting for the realization to click into place, watching his eyes for the moment it happened. "I answered."

All of the color drained from his face and he turned to run. I let him get several steps before the ground grabbed his feet. Earth mounded itself around his legs, burying him up to his knees. He couldn't move.

I walked over to him, moving around him so that I could look him in the eye. I left bloody footprints behind me.

"Please," he begged. "Don't do this. I don't deserve this."

"But you do," I said. I leant closer but he was too tall to look in the eyes comfortably. He sunk into the earth so that his eyes were level with mine. "And I'm sorry, but it's not just for the things you have done, it's for the things you were going to do."

"How can you punish me for things I haven't even done?" I watched water roll down his face and wasn't sure if it was rain water or tears. I reached a hand out to caress his cheek, collecting a line of water on my fingertip. I brought my hand up to my mouth. I tasted the saltwater and smiled.

Wait, I screamed at my body. That wasn't me. I didn't drink my victim's tears. That was... that wasn't...

I felt a connection flare up between us, as though by swallowing his tear, I'd taken in a piece of his soul, cannibalizing him. I felt like I was going to throw up. He was so afraid. Every piece of his soul quivered in fear. I could feel the fear crawling up the back of his throat. It was claustrophobic. It was terrible.

The ground mounded itself up his body a small amount and I realized that the wild hunt could taste his fear from the beginning. From the first moment he tasted fear as a child, that terror coalesced into the wild hunt. The wild hunt was always in the shadows, always waiting in the dark. Watching, waiting, collecting nightmares. No wonder everyone was afraid of it. The wild hunt wasn't just made of justice, it was made of nightmares. And Zephan's nightmare was being buried alive.

"Good," I said. "The thing is, I'm not punishing you for the future. I'm just stopping it. This land has had enough of people like you." I leant in very close and whispered in his ear. "Even the sky is bleeding." I heard people start screaming all around me as what I said became true. It stopped raining water and started raining blood. It seemed more relevant that way.

Zephan began sobbing in earnest. Hearing the shuddering gasps that came from him, I suddenly had enough. This wasn't me.

"I don't have the stomach for torture," I said, turning away. I pushed against the force inside me. I tried to separate myself from the wild hunt. Tried to stop it. I tried, believe it or not, to let Zephan go. I didn't want to be like him. I didn't want to be, but I was.

"Please," I heard him scream as the earth opened up beneath him. "Please." I felt him choke around the earth as it flooded around him, diving into his mouth, filling his throat. His screams were choked off by the pressure of the dirt filling in on him. I felt the last vestiges of his consciousness flicker beneath the earth for a brief, panicky moment. Then there was nothing. Sometimes, that's how it is with death.

I sighed with relief. It was over. He was gone. I was done. I tried to let go of the wild hunt. I tried to release it, like I release a person's consciousness when I return them to the grave. But the wild hunt wasn't going anywhere. It turned me around to scan the crowds. Everyone was staring at me. I suppose, when someone makes blood fall from the sky, there's nothing else you can do.

"I called the wild hunt," I said. The words came out sounding feathery soft, as though I wasn't entirely sure what I was saying. The truth was I didn't know anymore. I didn't know if I was the one speaking or if the wild hunt was speaking through me. Since it was the truth, I wondered if it made a difference. Someone near the edges of the crowd started running as soon as the words had left my mouth.

"You can run," I said, and even though I didn't speak loudly, I knew that my words would chase him down and ring in his ears. "You can run until the ends of the earth and it won't be far enough." I could feel shadows collecting around me. Deep, dark shadows. The kind of shadows you'd expect to cling to death itself. And that was okay, because that's who I was.

I thought I was riding the wild hunt, that I could control it. But you can't ride the wild hunt, not really. It might seem like you can, at first, but in the end, it rides you. I felt it coil up into the centre of my being, into that deep silent place where my power hid. It slid along power, darkness touching darkness, and then it took it. The wild hunt took my power and it used it to call the dead from their graves.

"They're coming," I whispered. The dead were coming for those who had wronged them and they would each deliver their own special brand of justice.

A line of my power dove into the ground in front of me, into Zephan. It dragged him back from death, but refused to let him out of his grave. He had to stay there, buried and aware. That was his punishment now.

All I could do was watch as the world turned to hell around me. It was my power that did it, and I was the one who started it, but I was so not in control. I felt like I'd gone from having a barbeque to starting a bush fire. It raged around me, totally out of control but I was the one who'd started it. It was my fault.

A horde of the dead crowded into the field, their ramshackle appearances showing that the wild hunt either didn't care enough to make them whole, didn't know how to use my powers properly, or that it wanted them to look like what they were. The living dead flowed across the field like wild fire. I watched them tear into a man, ripping into his flesh with their skeletal hands. I watched them bite into him, fresh blood pouring out over jaws that were far too human, even in their half rotted state. My fault.

I watched the dead reign destruction and, no matter how much I tried to tell myself that the people they attacked deserved it, I couldn't stop the panic rising up in my chest. It clawed at my throat and made it hard to breath. I didn't want this. I didn't want to be a part of it, but I was. I started the fire, so everything that burned did so because of me.

I felt the shadows around me deepen, solidify. I felt them peel away. For a moment the lady in the dark cloak was back in front of me. Her face was wreathed in shadows again and I think she'd given up my face. She didn't stay in front of me long enough for me to make certain.

"Not all of the victims still have bodies," she whispered. "But they too deserve their justice." She dissolved into a cloud of darkness and the darkness coiled away, like smoke on the wind. Only instead of drifting randomly, the shadows seemed to seek people out and dive into their chests. Those touched by shadows fell to the ground, writhing in agony. Some of them screamed, some of them merely whimpered, all of them were destroyed. I knew, even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't stop the darkness from seeking out its targets.

You can't hold back the dark.

You just can't.

------------------------------

Yikes, were you expecting this?

Laurel to go full on villain?

Even though she's being controlled.

Guess now we know what h

Til next time,

x zuz