by J. A. Curtis
“Yeah, uh-huh,” I said, my words coming out slurred. “Come on, Keera, even a human child can bring you down.”
A flame sparked in Keera’s eyes. “Well, let’s see you stop me,” she snarled. The inky black substance coalesced back into a strange cross between a bison and a pig’s head with a human body. It stood before Chels’s prone, vulnerable body, sword in hand.
But it didn’t move.
Keera wasn’t moving anymore either.
“Oh, honey,” Thaya said, her voice soft. “You should know better than to get angry around me.”
And slowly, slowly, Thaya’s faerie guardian rose from the earth. Bloody scratches covered her skin, and one wing hung limp and broken at the warrior woman’s side. She nocked an arrow into her bow, swung it around—and aimed at Keera.
“Thaya,” I said.
Thaya sniffed. “Fine.”
The bow and arrow redirected, and the arrow sailed into the inky black substance. The light consumed the darkness, disintegrating it into nothing. Keera’s body collapsed to the ground. Fallen.
Feet splashed in the water behind me.
“I got her,” a familiar voice said, and warm arms encircled me, lifting my exhausted body from the stream.
Kris gave Arius a grateful look and limped from the water, shivering.
I met that dark, intense gaze. “Did you defeat Margus?”
“No,” Dramian answered from next to Arius, looking surly. “The coward took off in the middle of the fight. I would have given chase, but he went to join up with—”
“The main force is almost here,” Arius said, his face grim. “We have less than ten minutes before their most-forward units reach the Haven.”
“You mean those who can fly,” I said.
“Which means it will be less than fifteen minutes before they reach us,” Arius said. “What should we do?”
Everyone turned to look at me. Were they serious? Docina, Arzon, whoever else we lost and whoever we almost lost, which was everyone. It was all because of me.
Still, I should say something. They were looking to me to lead. This was my responsibility, my burden.
I stared at the ground.
I had no answers.
“We don’t have a choice,” Arius finally said. “We have to abandon the Haven.”
There was a moment of silence as the weight of that decision settled on all of us.
No.
I searched through my mind. That couldn’t be the answer. There had to be a way to fight them off, a way to keep our home.
“We can’t,” I said, my voice thick with emotion.
“You don’t have a choice. Go through the mines,” Thaya said. She had recovered enough from her fall to stand. She made her way over to Chels and coaxed her to her feet. Chels wavered, and Thaya steadied her. “By the time you get through them, you’ll be behind their lines,” she finished.
“There’s a car. At the entrance,” Kris pointed out.
“But the babies and the children. They won’t all fit in the car, and traveling in the open with them would make us vulnerable,” I said. I tapped Arius’s shoulder, and he set me on my feet.
“Leave the babies with me in the mines. Just take some younger children with you,” Thaya responded.
Leave babies underground in musty, dirty tunnels? In the dark? The thought made me sick.
“Are you sure?” Arius asked.
“Yes. Let me have Veran and a couple other ten-year-olds to help and take as many five-year-olds as you can.”
“I’ll command Lyra and Aman to stay with you,” Dramian said.
Arius turned to Kris. “How many five-year-olds do you think you could fit in the car if you are packing them in tight, minus yourself, and three ten-year-olds?”
Kris frowned as she considered the question. “I could put one on the lap of each ten-year-old, three on the floor, and squeeze two into the passenger seat with one on the cup holder.”
“So nine.” Arius turned back to Thaya. “That will leave you with five, plus the two toddlers from Dramian’s camp.”
“It’ll have to do,” Thaya said.
“No. We can’t just leave children underground. What if they find you? How will you survive?” A panic spread through my chest. My fault. My fault. This was another consequence of my failure. How could I leave them alone and unprotected? This was my job, my duty.
And I had failed them all.
“I’ll stay and help Thaya.” We all turned to see Wolpertinger making his way upstream. He looked worn, and his wings dragged at his side. “I can scout and gather food up here on the surface.”
“I’ll stay too,” I said.
Arius frowned. “Mina, you need to protect the queen.”
“I don’t care.”
“They’ll be safer without you,” Dramian pointed out. “If Margus and the others discover those hiding, what do you think they will do to the children in order to get the information they want out of you?”
I flinched. They’d be safer—safer underground in dark dank tunnels than with me. I had successfully proved today that everyone was safer without me.
“Once we are through the mine, Dramian and I will go meet up with the faeries who escaped from the battle,” Arius said. “Mina, you can focus on getting the queen to safety.”
A numbness was coming over me, and I found myself nodding. “Yeah, okay.”
A concerned look passed around the group.
“Where are we going to meet up?” Kris asked. “Where are you going to live?”
Again, silence fell over the group. I shut my eyes. Was there anywhere we could go? This was my last chance. My last opportunity for Jazrael to do something that might protect the queen, protect the faeries. I shut my eyes and felt the shifting sensation come over me, but this time the memories that came to me were my own.
A cabin, a large one, rarely inhabited on the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene. A tux. A dinner.
My eyes opened. “I know a place. Kris, meet me in the parking lot of the Coeur d’Alene Casino.”
“On the reservation?” she asked.
I nodded. “After I show Kris where to go, Arius and Dramian, I’ll meet you at the southernmost tip of Lake Coeur d’Alene.”
No one questioned. Everyone nodded.
“All right. That’s our plan,” Arius said.
“There is an old air shaft into the mines close to here,” Thaya said. “We can enter there well before they show up.”
“Let’s move,” Arius said.
Chels was finally standing on her own and had gotten her faerie guardian back on her arm. Thaya led the way through the trees with Chels, Dramian, and Kris following.
Arius walked at my side. “Are you okay?” he asked in a low voice.
“How many did we lose?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
He didn’t respond.
“Arius?”
“Including Docina and Arzon—maybe fourteen?”
My legs trembled, and my knees began to buckle. So many friends lost. I’d decimated our numbers. Arius should be furious with me.
His arm slid around my waist, and he pulled me against him. The heat of his body seeped into mine. I wished I could just forget everything and enjoy him next to me. Pretend like the last few hours never happened.
“Nobody is exempt, Mina,” he said, a softness to his voice I knew I didn’t deserve. His lips brushed across my forehead. “I’m here for you.”
My vision grew blurry. A tear slid down my cheek, and I quickly swiped it away.
“Thank you,” I whispered. And I will never doubt you again.
Horror and regret still clouded my mind but were shifting into something new. I wasn’t exempt. I had made poor choices, but this wasn’t over. We would keep fighting. And we would end this once and for all.
Epilogue: The Prize
Chels
IF I WAS FORCED TO be queen, they could at least provide a better chauffeur.
I squeezed my legs and refused
to look down, clutching Mina. The flying horse streaked across the sky at an unnatural speed. I’d ridden her faerie guardian once before, in griffin form, but Arius’s firm hands had steadied me. Her griffin wasn’t half as fast as this winged horse creature, but even then, the idea of tumbling off into nothing had kept me sitting as still as possible.
Frigid air blew past, stinging my ears and making my eyes water. My teeth chattered, and my fingers felt like ice. How did faeries stand wearing nothing on their arms? My braided hair whipped behind, and I wished to tuck it in, but the tight leather faerie armor didn’t allow for hair tucking.
Mina let her hair blow free, tangling in the breeze, seeming not to care that she’d look like a distant relation to my Persian Longhair back home by the time we landed. Not to mention the nasty knots she’d have to disassemble.
Keeping the prize alive—that was all that mattered. And I was the prize.
Obviously, I wanted to stay alive. But the incompetence of those who were supposed to protect me made that less of a certainty. The Fomori had come close to claiming their prize tonight.
Mina’s dysfunctional plan was to blame.
And yet here I was, placing my life in her hands, again. Not that I had a choice. As much as I wanted to return home, I had come to the hard realization that whatever security my parents might provide, it would never hold up against the monsters that were coming for me.
Then again, I wasn’t sure Mina could hold up against them either.
I ducked, pressing my forehead against the leather at Mina’s back, using her as a windbreak. Mina shifted, rolling her shoulders in discomfort.
“Hold still,” I snapped, shutting my eyes to keep from glancing down at the ground far below.
“Then sit up,” Mina threw back.
I straightened only because she controlled the beast on which we rode. “This is all your fault, you know.”
Mina’s shoulders tensed and then slumped. “I know,” she muttered.
“They almost killed me.”
“I put my trust in the wrong person.”
I huffed. “How is someone like you supposed to protect me?”
Her head bowed. “I don’t know.”
My jaw clenched, and I ground my teeth. Not only was Mina an inept protector, she was terrible at reassurances.
Without warning, an electric current shot up my back and the edges of my vision dimmed. I gasped, losing feeling in my hands and feet, my sight tunneling.
My worst nightmare.
Mina slipped from my grasp as I tipped sideways.
“Chels?” Mina’s voice was distant as my body tumbled into freefall.
There was a shout, and air rushed past me, ripping my breath away.
Panic drove the fit back, my eyesight returning. A scream rose in my throat, but I couldn’t claim enough air to release it, my stomach heaving.
Mina’s pegasus was diving for me, with Mina’s arms clinging to its neck. Right before it reached me, it changed in mid-air. Feathers sprouted across its body and an eagle head appeared. A claw reached out.
My body jolted as the talons closed around me and the griffin's wings spread above me, pulling us out of the dive and leveling out our flight. Somehow, Mina had stayed on its back.
I sucked in air, tears of terror coursing down my cheeks, the heart in my chest hammering like a jackhammer.
But the future wouldn’t leave me alone. The process started again with the tingle up my spine, my sight dimming. I pressed my hands to my head and groaned.
And then it took me.
Hundreds of creatures gathered before a giant stone wall in the middle of the woods—dragons and faerie warriors, giants armed for battle, and more creatures of all kinds that I couldn’t name. They watched the flat stone in front of them, as if waiting for something momentous to occur.
A spark lighted the stone, then grew, spreading out, the solid rock rippling like water. When the light faded, an archway appeared in the large gray slab.
A man I didn’t recognize, with dark hair tied in a low ponytail, materialized in the gap. He gazed over those gathered, with eyes that held flecks of red.
He stepped through the portal, holding a young woman in his arms. Her head tipped back and long golden hair streamed down. Her limp arms wobbled with his steps.
Any noise that buzzed among those watching fell to silence.
The man dumped the young woman onto the ground with a sickening thump. She landed in the grass on her back, blood coating her chest. Her face a sickly sheet of white, she stared upward with glassy, unseeing eyes.
Eyes I recognized.
My eyes.
“The queen is dead!” the man shouted.
The silence shattered as a triumphant cheer rose, echoing into the sky.
The End
Author’s Note:
Thank you so much for taking the time to read Rise of the Fomori, Faerie Warriors book 2! I hope you are enjoying all the twists and turns as much as I am! Mina, Dramian and Arius will be back, soon, in the final installment of the Faerie Warrior Trilogy, Battle of the Lost Fae!
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Your feedback goes a long way toward increasing this book’s visibility as well as improving the quality of future books. It is also a great way to show support and help new authors like myself!
Read More By JA Curtis
Feud: Arius’s Story
(A Lies of the Haven Novella)
*Free copy available by signing up for JA Curtis’s Newsletter!
Lies of the Haven
(Faerie Warriors Book 1)
Rise of the Fomori
(Faerie Warriors Book 2)
Battle of the Lost Fae
(Faerie Warriors Book 3)
Coming Soon...
Acknowledgements
WRITING AND PUBLISHING a book is hard work! Part of writing a polished book is having a team of people to help support you and to transform your book into something better than you could make it alone.
With that in mind, I want to thank my critique partner Rachel P, who was willing to read through my manuscript to give me in depth feedback and to be my sounding board.
I also wanted to thank my advanced readers who gave much needed suggestions and thoughts—Joanna, Alexandre, Rachel, Rebecca, and Jacque. Also, a big thanks to my most wonderful critique group, The Ravenquills—Stephanie, Diana, Allison, Cary, Michelle, Mandy, Quillen, Rebecca, Deanna and all others who gave feedback!
I want to especially thank those who took the time to leave an honest online review. You are helping me reach more readers and motivating me to become a better writer.
A special thanks to my editor, Kameo Monson, who helped me with the finishing touches, as well as Maria Spada for creating my amazing cover.
A heartfelt thanks to my awesome family who supported me through this. My husband, who continues to support me. My mom and dad, for their loving encouragement. Thanks to my little daughters who make it easy for me to be both a mom and a writer. Finally, thanks to all my other family and friends who have expressed excitement and a desire to read my writing. Your support is invaluable.
About the Author
J.A. Curtis has been making stories up in her head for as long as she can remember. Although she doesn’t play with toys and dolls as much as when she was young, the stories in her mind never left her alone. She is super excited to fulfill the life-long dream of becoming a published author!
When she is not writing, she is reading, spending time with her husband and two amazing daughters and trying to live her life with half as much guts as Mina
To learn more about J.A. Curtis and her writing, You can also check out her website at jacurtisbooks.com or email her at [email protected].
Also! Sign up for her newsletter to receive a free novella, Feud: Arius’s Story, as well as exclusive information about upcoming books!
f the Fomori: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure (Faerie Warriors Book 2)
