The Unicorn Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page A

and squeezed her throat with icy fingers. She forced her fear-stiffened neck to turn her head and see the faerie that haunted her nightmares.
    Liadan, the Winter Queen, who had hunted Maddy, Roisin and Danny across Tír na nÓg last year, was shuffling across the grass with her crippled, dragging step. Her long black hair was piled high on her head and her crown of ice perched on top. Frost and ice radiated from her feet and petrified the ground. Bitter arctic air from her lips blew against the warm air of the Spring and Summer Courts. The clouds of butterflies spiralled into the air in panic, a few stragglers dropping to the ground as the cold iced their tissue-thin wings and stopped their tiny hearts. The Spring and Summer monarchs frowned and their warm golden glow roared into life in a solar flare to clash with Winter’s chill. The air sizzled and steamed, water pattering to the ground and marking a boundary line in mud between them and Winter.
    Now that Maddy could compare Liadan to the Tuatha de Dannan, she could see how weak the crippled Winter Queen really was. Liadan was no Tuatha de Dannan but a bloodthirsty elf who had been given theWinter crown and married to Seamus in an attempt to bring peace to war-torn Faerie when the last Winter Queen disappeared. But it is not easy wearing the crown of a Tuatha. Liadan was an old and powerful elf but she did not have the strength of a god. As soon as the High Queen of the faeries, the Morrighan, had placed the crown on Liadan’s head, the cold of winter entered her body and it had twisted and warped her, ruining her beauty and her mind. Maddy shuddered as the elf sent a cruel smile her way. She would never forget the look of joy on Liadan’s face when she had stabbed ice through Maddy’s shoulder. Or the way her painted lips had curled in a snarl when she had knelt over Maddy and sent waves of ice into her chest in an attempt to stop her heart.
    The leader of Winter’s war band, Fachtna, towered behind Liadan. Maddy felt the world spin around her and her knees buckle as the field roared away and the memory of Fachtna standing over her, lightning flickering over her bone-white skin as she raised her silver sword to drive it through Maddy’s throat, washed over her and drowned her senses. Maddy heard her own voice screaming in her head – ‘
You can’t kill me!
’ And Fachtna, cocking that long head at her, the fire in her red eyes glowing bright. ‘
Let’s find out.
’ Fachtna was as tall as the Tuatha and every inch of her skin was covered ingrey tattoos. Her white hair was stiffened with lime and formed a high Mohican, her teeth were filed into points and her red eyes burned in her pointed, hook-nosed face. She bristled with weapons and scars and, as Maddy stared at her, the faerie grinned and an unnaturally long tongue curled out and licked her pointed teeth. She had no doubt Liadan still wanted her dead and that Fachtna was tasked to do the deed. The war faerie was probably still furious that Maddy had outrun her hounds last year and that she, Fachtna, had failed to hunt her down for the Winter Queen. She could not boast that she always caught her prey, not any more. Fachtna enjoyed killing, and Maddy was under no illusions that if Fachtna caught her, her death would be slow and painful. The dark faerie gained nourishment in some weird way from the darker human emotions. She would take great pleasure in making Maddy scream and would drink in every drop of her agony like a fine wine. Bile burned in the back of Maddy’s throat and she felt Granda’s arm tighten around her as he held her up, bringing her back to the here and now.
    â€˜Breathe, Maddy,’ he said. ‘Don’t give her your fear – it will only make her stronger.’
    The howling of the faeries brought Maddy back to her senses and she wrenched her eyes away from Fachtna’s glowing red orbs and listened in horror asthe courts