I stepped back several paces, my pulse pounding through my ears. Aengus was the son of a demigod. Did that mean he couldn’t die? I glanced at Rosalind, who offered me a hand. I shook my head, and she flew back. Would the trunk eject Aengus if Drayce pulled off the branches with his shadows?
Cathbad finally rose, holding a smaller sack in one hand and in the other, a handful of engraved stones. “Allow me, Your Majesty.”
The druid tilted his head up toward the bound branches, nodded to himself, and walked to the base of the tree. Every few paces, he dropped a stone and sprinkled the white contents of his sack at its roots. I held my breath, hoping it was salt. Salt was one of the few substances faeries couldn’t abide. On the day that I opened a rift into the human world to help Father escape the palace, the salty wind had stung like a squeezed lemon over a cut.
A gurgling sound rattled my eardrums, followed by retching. The trunk split, and wooden teeth splintered out from its maw. With a gut-churning groan, the tree hurled Aengus out into the road. He rolled several times before stopping at our feet.
I dropped to my knees and turned him onto his back.
Rosalind rushed to our side. “Is he alive?”
Aengus coughed out a mouthful of foul liquid. “That was…” He turned his head and spluttered. “A Fomorian must have found a way to mate with a tree.”
My gaze rose to the giant plant, which still struggled within Drayce’s shadows. “We’ve got to kill it.”
Drayce patted me on the arm. “Erin has stopped pulling on my shadow.”
I stared up into his stern features. “What does that mean?”
“She has reached her destination.” Drayce pulled me up and placed an arm around my middle. “Let’s move before Melusina and the Fear Dorcha send reinforcements.”
As Cathbad and Rosalind set Aengus to his feet, I placed a hand on his arm and frowned. “Can you continue?”
He gave me a sharp nod. “It will take more than a carnivorous tree to get between me and my revenge.”
A relieved breath escaped my nostrils, and I turned to Cathbad with a smile. “Thank you. Where did you get the salt?”
The druid pulled back his shoulders and preened. “Osmos kindly lent me a capall to venture into the human territory, and I brought back enough salt to last me a year.”
Aengus stumbled onto his hands and knees, his eyes drooping shut. “I feel—”
He collapsed to the ground and snored.
My eyes bulged. “What’s happening, now?”
Cathbad reached into his pocket and pulled out his pinched fingers. I inhaled a sharp breath. Salt. This reminded me of how I once brought Shona, the daughter of Mayor Mulloy, out of the gancanagh’s lust-induced trance. Cathbad placed the salt between Aengus’ lips, making the larger male jerk and spit.
“You’d better wipe that sap off your clothes before it affects you,” Drayce muttered.
“Good idea.” I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and ran it over my leather armor.
Some of the sap had drenched into my hair, and I let the cloth soak in the foul liquid. By the time I finished, the handkerchief doubled in weight. Resisting the urge to toss it aside, I slipped it into my leather pocket.
The last time I came across a poison, it had saved me from a group of soldiers planning on sacrificing my body to Melusina.
Drayce led us off the winding road and through a forest of more dead trees. Our glowing lights cast flickering shadows over trunks that seemed to stretch to the sky. Dried leaves and twigs crunched underfoot, but the sound barely registered in the still, silent air.
We passed a herd of sleeping deer, their antlers tangled and overgrown. Squirrels still clung to their branches in slumber, and a giant serpent who dangled from a branch with unmoving red eyes.
Nobody stopped, spoke, nobody dared to slow. We stole through the forest, following the shadow Drayce had wrapped around Erin’s hoof.
The shadow led to a wall of vines as thick as tree trunks that twisted toward the sky. I leaned back and tilted my head up, but all I could see were more vines.
“Rosalind, could you fly up with a torch?” I asked.
She launched herself in the sky, illuminating thorns as long and as thick as my fingers. “There’s a building here,” she said. “It’s about the size of the Summer Court Palace.”
I turned to ask Aengus if he had visited the Summer Court, but he wasn’t there and neither was Cathbad. A palpitation of fear squeezed my heart. I turned to Drayce. “Where are the others?”
He cocked his head to the side and frowned. “What are you talking about? We came here alone.”
I tilted my head up, looking for Rosalind, but she and her glowing torch were also gone. “We didn’t.” My voice shook. “Something’s happening.”
Drayce’s large hand ran down my back. “Whatever it is, remain calm.”
My mouth fell open. “How can you not remember everyone?”
Warm, damp air fanned against the left side of my face, accompanied by rasping panting and the ghost of fur brushing against my cheek. Without meaning to, I turned and met glowing eyes the size of dinner plates and a set of teeth as long as my forearm.
“Drayce?” The word came out a panicked gasp.
He didn’t reply.
I swung to my right, holding the glowing torch.
Drayce was gone.
Chapter 23
Time slowed as all the blood drained from my face and into a heart that beat so hard that my eardrums rattled. The creature’s golden gaze filled my vision and blazed against my skin with the intensity of a crackling fire.
Even in the dark, I could tell this was no dog or a wolf or anything with a snout. I didn’t know what manner of creature had pupil-less eyes and a wide maw of grinning fangs.
Thoughts raced through my mind. The creature stood ten feet away on my left, and the vines twenty feet straight ahead. If it was some kind of cat, it might pounce on me if I ran. But this was no cat—their pupils were slitted.
Each of its hot, snickering breaths fanned against my skin, making my flesh want to crawl off its bones. I took a tentative step back, only to feel against my back the ghost of something warm and furred and breathing equally as hard.
Panic punched me in the heart. I sprinted to the vines, my pounding pulse urging me to go faster. The first step felt like crushing dry leaves underfoot, and the second as steady as a tree.
Something snagged a lock of my hair, but I continued up the vine, letting it tear out from the roots. After the third, fourth, and fifth steps, it felt like I was bounding up a stairwell with a handrail that pulsed and twitched under my fingertips.
Loud huffing and snorting shook the vines, and something large and soft pressed into my back. My teeth chattered. My bones trembled. My eardrums quivered in unison with the sound.
“Help,” I screamed, but nobody came.
Something pulled at my skirts, and hot, damp breath fanned my bare legs. I twisted around, met those golden eyes, and kicked.
The howl that rent the air made my ears tremble with alarm. I scrambled up the vine, my feet slipping over rotted leaves, my hands clutching at rough stalks. Thorns scratched at my armor, pulled at my hair, tore at my skin, but the terror coursing through my veins dulled the pain. If I didn’t reach high ground before that creature recovered—
A large body slammed into my side and knocked me off the vine. My torch slipped from my fingers, and I fell onto my side with a thud.
I rolled onto my back, unsheathed the Sword of Tethra, just as the heavy weight crushed my chest. I thrashed and squirmed and kicked, but it pressed harder.
“Get off me,” I snarled through my teeth.
It answered with breathy snickers.
Clenching my teeth, I plunged the sword into its flesh. The weight flinched, taking the pressure off my lungs. Inhaling a deep breath, I pulled out the sword and readied myself to attack again, but the weight slammed down with harder force.
Lightning bolts of pa
in struck across my ribcage, and I cried out both from agony and from crushing failure. A satisfied huff of breath warmed the side of my face. I jerked my head away, and warm droplets seeped into my hair.
Slowing my breaths, I tried to fill my lungs, tried to calm my thoughts and think my way out from under this monster. Stabbing blindly wouldn’t work. The creature would have killed or eaten me by now if it wanted, so it was probably restraining me until someone could drag my body inside for Melusina.
I had to destroy its limb with the sword’s full power and combine my attack with the cornerstone’s magic. The stone pulsed against my skin, urging me to use it.
Releasing the sword’s grip, I eased my hand past its guard, down its blade and squeezed. It sliced through my flesh, but I didn’t flinch, didn’t hiss, didn’t make a sound.
Musk and fur filled my nostrils, and panting breaths filled my ears. I ran my bloody palm over the blade, pushed it up to coat the metal with more of my blood, and kept going until I reached its point.
The creature tugged at my hair and chewed. Channelling all my determination into the piece of cornerstone that pulsed against my skin, I snatched the sword and drove it straight into the creature.
Its howl shook my flesh, rang through my bones, and seeped into my marrow. A platter-sized patch of daylight opened up three feet from my head and pulled the creature into its depths. I squinted against the disc of afternoon sun, my heart soaring.
A flat-faced monster stared back at me with wide, yellow eyes. Its pale, tawny fur gave it the look of a bearded man with a shocked, open mouth of sharp teeth. Before it could bark or snarl or whine, the rift closed, plunging me into the dark.
I scrambled off my feet, gripped the sword with both hands, stretched out my arms and spun. The blade caught on something that yowled, and I lunged. This time, water gushed out from my sword. I staggered back in the dark, cringing as the creature I struck snarled. Heartbeats later, the sounds of water and struggling ceased.
Tension flooded out of my body, and I doubled over with relief. With the help of the cornerstone, I’d just moved the monsters into other Courts.
Something glowed about twenty feet away—my fallen torch. I rushed toward it and was about to pick it up when my gaze caught a figure struggling on his back. It was Cathbad. As I approached, the glowing light illuminated the outline of a creature with long, angular ears.
I charged at it with the point of my sword outstretched, hoping there was enough blood to send it away. The cornerstone pulsed twice as though to say it would help. The Sword of Tethra sliced through its flesh, and with a gut-churning sucking, the creature vanished from my blade.
“Are you alright?” I reached down and offered Cathbad a hand.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” He picked up the torch and shone it over the ground, illuminating his bag and staff.
After picking them up, he muttered, “Confounded creatures.”
“Let’s find the others,” I said.
Cathbad handed me the torch, and we walked around the perimeter of the castle, glancing from side to side for signs of our comrades or attacking beasts.
“What happened to you?” I whispered. “One minute, we were standing in front of the vines, and the next, everyone was gone.”
“Something grabbed me from behind and tossed me away,” he whispered back. “Before I could shout a warning, it filled my mouth with fur.”
“They’re trying to separate us.”
I rubbed at my sore chest, not bothering to add that whoever was behind these attacks probably wanted my companions dead.
The ground crunched underfoot but silence muffled up the sound. We kept close to the twisting vines, which seemed to ripple and writhe in the edge of my vision. I squeezed the Sword of Tethra, readying it for a sudden attack.
Cathbad raised a hand. “Do you feel that?”
“What?” I asked.
“That breeze.”
“But there’s no wind,” I whispered.
“Then someone must be moving the air with strong magic.”
“Drayce.”
We burst into a run, raced alongside the wall, rounded the corner, and stumbled to a stop. Two torches lay on the ground, illuminating Drayce and Aengus standing back-to-back, each slicing at horned, man-sized creatures with their swords. The monsters leaped from the dark with claws outstretched, but Drayce’s shadows wrapped around their necks and pierced their guts, raining down torrents of blood.
“Why isn’t he cocooning himself with shadows?” I whispered.
“He wants to destroy them,” Cathbad replied.
A pair of arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me into the air. I gasped and Cathbad yelped, but a female voice said, “It’s Rosalind. Cathbad, stop squirming.”
I held the torch aloft and twisted around to find her face covered in blood. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing fatal.” She flew several feet above the ground and to the vines. “Please wait here. His Majesty and Aengus have nearly finished.”
After slipping the Sword of Tethra back into its hilt, I placed a foot on the juncture between a wooded vine and one of its thick branches and then reached for it with my free hand. Cathbad and I secured ourselves within the vegetation, and Rosalind flew over Drayce and Aengus, illuminating the monsters with her torch.
She cast the light mostly on Aengus’ side, who didn’t have the advantage of shadows and being able to see in the dark. The two males continued slashing and stabbing at the creatures, thinning their numbers.
Cold fear trickled down my back. The Fear Dorcha must consider them the biggest threat.
“Shouldn’t we do something to help them?” I asked.
Cathbad flinched and then glanced down at my hands, which were covered in dried blood. “Can you touch salt, Your Majesty?”
“I haven’t tried since losing my humanity,” I replied.
He climbed down a few feet, saying, “Then please wait here, and I will salt these vines.”
I was about to ask why, when a tendril the size of a silk thread wrapped around my wrist. With a snarl, I snapped it off, only for another tendril to coil around my ankle. Something the thickness of my little finger snaked around my neck. I peeled it away and yanked it out by the root. Our presence must have triggered the vines to come alive.
“Hurry,” I whispered.
Cathbad grunted his agreement and disappeared into the dark.
Snarls and snorts and screams filled the silence as the battle continued. I elbowed a twisting stalk, pulled at questing leaves, and stomped on encroaching branches, waiting for Cathbad’s salt to subdue the vine. Right now, I wished I had flames to burn the vegetation or a leather glove to wrap around my hands. I itched to plunge an iron dagger into the wretched plants.
After what felt like an eternity of struggling, the vines groaned and shrank, making me cling onto their woodier stems to keep from falling. The battle ebbed to a few whimpers as the remaining creatures scuttled back toward the forest.
“Finally.” I turned my gaze to the vines, which now resembled desiccated trees instead of lush, green plants.
“Your Majesty?” Rosalind appeared at my side. “I’m sorry for putting you in danger.”
I shook my head. “If I stayed on the ground, those creatures would have surrounded me or something would have attacked from behind. Besides, those vines didn’t start moving until after you left.”
Relief spread across her features, and she glanced down to where Drayce, Aengus and Cathbad climbed the vines.
“I tried the front door, but it’s jammed, ” Cathbad said from several feet below. “Now that I’ve rendered the vines dormant, we need an alternative means of approaching the interior.”
Drayce climbed to my side, his worried gaze searching my face. I smiled and nodded, indicating that I was fine.
He closed his eyes, loosening a breath. “When those things surrounded us, I feared that they had taken you.”
I rested my head against his sh
oulder, inhaling his reassuring, leathery scent. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head and smiled. “And you?”
“It’s not me they want to kill,” I murmured.
We fell silent, staring into each other’s eyes as Cathbad and Aengus climbed to our level. In the glow of Crom Cruach’s molten gold, Drayce’s eyes were a deep, pine-green mingled with stars of emerald. My heart clenched. How many more obstacles would we need to cross before we reached Melusina and the Fear Dorcha?
I tried not to think that we had three more of these Courts to liberate until we could free my kingdom, tried not to think of what it would take to put Drayce back on his throne.
“What next?” Aengus’ voice cut through my musings.
Drayce tipped his head back and squinted up into the vines. “I see an open window on the top floor.”
“They’ll be waiting for us,” I said.
“Then they had better send more than a pack of beasts,” he replied with a grin.
Aengus huffed a laugh. “Well said.”
Some of the tightness in my chest loosened at their good cheer.
The patch of dead vines was broad and strong enough to accommodate the four of us and contained branches thick and twisting enough to provide footholds. As we climbed, Rosalind flew overhead, holding the torches and illuminating the way. Drayce kept his pace slow to match mine, as did Aengus.
Cathbad strapped his long staff to his back and breathed hard with the effort of the climb. I wondered what toll being enslaved for centuries would have on a druid’s body and made a note to ask Osmos to check on his health on our return.
Only the slight rustle of dried leaves broke the stillness in the air, and even Rosalind’s wings made no sound. Dead bark loosened from beneath my fingers, turning into dust.
Dread clenched at my gut with icy fists. What if this was also a poison? I couldn’t hold my breath for too long as the dust lingered in the air. And if no one attacked us on our climb, did that mean we would walk into an ambush?
After a few moments, we reached a section of the vines that covered a tall window with one segment opened a few inches. I steadied my feet on one of the thick branches and rested my arms on the wooden sill. Drayce’s shadows parted the dead vines with several sharp snaps, and he pulled open a window with a soft creak.
Mate of the Fae King (Dark Faerie Court Book 2) Page 21
