by KJ Baker
I leaned against the wall, breathing deeply through my nostrils, fighting to calm the panic ripping through my system. I should have done more to guard Asha. I should have guessed they would come for her. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have failed to see the threat that Felena posed?
Felena Sand. Her image flashed into my mind. Cold. Arrogant. Beautiful.
My stomach clenched at the thought of Asha in her grasp.
“This makes no sense,” Rillana said. “She cannot have teleported in here so how did she get in? Have we been betrayed? Has one of our own sold us out?”
I shook my head. “Felena needed nobody’s help. She knows the ways of the Shadow Court intimately.”
“How? Who is this woman?” Rillana demanded. “It’s obvious you all know her. What aren’t you telling me?” She spoke with all the authority of her office.
“Tell her, Raven,” Ffion said. “She is the Spire. She needs to know.”
My gut twisted with shame as I forced myself to meet Rillana’s stare.
“She’s my betrothed.”
Rillana’s hazel eyes widened with shock. “What? But you’re mated to Asha!”
“Don’t you think I realize that?”
“Then what’s going on?”
“It’s...it’s complicated.”
“Complicated? How? You are either betrothed to a woman or you aren’t. You are either mated to a woman are you aren’t. You cannot be both!”
“Do not presume to judge me!” I growled, surging to my feet.
Hot anger flared in my gut—anger and shame. Anger won out. My mate had been abducted—I did not need anyone’s judgment right now. And I did not feel like explaining myself.
“Concentrate on getting Asha back,” I grated, turning away from the accusing look in the Spire’s eyes. “That’s what matters.”
I peered around the passage. “This is where the ambush took place. I doubt mere coincidence made Felena choose this spot. There has to be something here. There has to be.”
I swept my gaze across the floor, walls and ceiling, looking for anything that was out of place. I found nothing. The passage was old, rarely used, with not even the most basic of decoration to grace the stonework.
No. Wait. What was that? At head height I spotted a slight discolouration on the rock. I reached up, ran my hand over it, and to my shock that section of wall suddenly slid away, revealing a darkened passage beyond. I blinked, staring at it for a moment, then called up my magic in a bright flare of light and stepped inside. The tunnel stretched off into the distance, stinking of mold and damp.
“So that’s how the bitch got out,” growled Ffion behind me. “How, by the Fates, did she know this was here?”
“We discovered the tunnels when we were children,” I replied. “I’d forgotten all about them. Felena, it seems, had not. Come on.”
I hurried into the tunnel, drawing a blade as I went. Behind me came the rasp of metal as Hawk and Ffion did the same. I broke into a run. I felt Asha through the bond, sensed her bewilderment, her fear.
Hold on, Asha, I thought. I’m coming for you.
Chapter 4
ASHA
I am his betrothed. We are engaged to be married.
The words hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. I was suddenly gasping for breath, my pulse roaring in my ears.
“You’re lying,” I managed to gasp out.
She cocked her head. “Am I? Are you sure about that?”
Raven had never mentioned this woman. Not once. She was lying. She had to be.
But my stomach was twisting itself into knots and I had a terrible sick sensation inside. There was so much I didn’t know about Raven. So much I had yet to learn. And if the discovery of my immortality was anything to go by, so much he’d neglected to tell me.
But this? No. No freaking way.
With a toss of her blonde head, she walked off again. “Get moving, we have a long way to go.”
I didn’t move. “I’m not going anywhere with you, you lying bitch.”
The full-handed slap caught me with enough force to send me crashing to the ground. I spat out soil and grass and levered myself onto my hands, head spinning. She grabbed me by the hair and wrenched me to my feet.
“Walk!” she hissed, gripping my arm and forcibly marching me forward.
I wanted to fight. I wanted to swear and scream and tell her exactly how furious I was, but it was all I could do to remain upright as she marched me towards our unknown destination.
I glanced over my shoulder. Where was Raven? Was he catching us? He wouldn’t be far behind. He would come for me. I knew it as surely as I knew the sun would rise in the east and then Felena would be revealed for the liar she was.
We marched in silence until she finally dragged me to a halt on a broad patch of open ground dotted with small shrubs. Beyond, the hillside fell away into a pine-filled valley but right here the ground was relatively flat.
“Here we are!” Felena announced.
I looked around but saw nothing to distinguish the spot from the rest of the landscape.
“Where?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mortals! You really are useless. Can’t even see what’s right in front of your noses!”
She muttered a few words under her breath and then held up one finger. A tiny point of light flared on the tip. She pressed the tip of that finger against the air and it suddenly...rippled.
For the briefest of moments light shimmered in either direction, revealing a barrier that stretched away into the distance. What the—?
And then I realized what I was looking at: the shield that protected the Shadow Court and prevented teleportation. Which meant—
I spun and burst into motion, sprinting back the way we’d come with all the strength I could muster. No. No. No. I would not let her do this!
But my legs were still weak, my balance still off, and Felena was after me in an instant. A blow to the back of my head staggered me and then her hands clamped onto my shoulders, spinning me around, and dragging me back towards the shield.
“Let go!” I shrieked. “Let go!”
I thrashed and kicked, tugged and dug in my heels, but to no avail. She would have been far stronger than me had I not been poisoned, but with the drug still in my veins, my efforts made less impression on her than a child’s tantrum.
She dragged me back to the shimmering curtain and then stepped through, pulling me after her. I felt only a faint sensation of heat wash across my skin and then we were standing on the other side.
Nothing had changed, and I would never have known I’d left the shield if Felena hadn’t taken the trouble to point it out. And yet, everything had changed. Now we were beyond the shield, Felena could teleport us anywhere.
Raven would not be able to find me.
I swallowed thickly. “Felena, listen. You don’t have to do this. Let me go. I’m not your enemy.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Did I ever say you were? You’re just a poor mortal caught up in affairs far greater than yourself.” She dug into the pocket of her servant’s uniform and took out a smooth black cube about half the size of her palm.
My mouth went dry at the sight of it. A portal cube.
“No, Felena, wait—”
She closed her eyes, said a few words in the Fae language, and the world blinked out of existence. For a suspended moment that seemed to last forever, I hung in nothingness. Then the world crashed back in and I staggered to my knees, retching into the dirt.
Except it wasn’t dirt. Not anymore. I was kneeling on marble paving stones that shimmered like silk under a bright sun. I wiped my mouth and staggered unsteadily to my feet.
We were no longer where we had been. The mountain side and the pine-filled valley had disappeared. Instead, Felena and I were standing at the head of a white marble bridge that arced out over a vast, gleaming lake. The lake’s waters were crystal-clear like liquid diamond. Shading my eyes, I gazed out over the lake and in the distance,
I thought I made out a pure white tower, as slender as a pinnacle rising into the sky.
“Where are we?” I demanded of Felena. “Where have you brought me?”
She gave me a mocking bow, bending low at the waist and spreading her arms wide. “Asha Grant, puny mortal extraordinaire,” she said. “Welcome to the Spire.”
RAVEN
They weren’t that far ahead. I could catch them. And when I did, Felena would be made to pay. My heart pounded with the thought and I picked up my pace, my footsteps echoing as I sped through the narrow tunnel, throwing my senses ahead to warn of any obstacles that might slow my progress. I was so close. Any moment now, I would catch them. I would regain my mate and—
Asha’s presence winked out of existence.
I missed my step and went sprawling, the hard ground slamming up to meet me. I cried out as an almost physical pain ripped straight through my soul.
“Raven!” Ffion yelled in alarm. “What is it?”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. There was only darkness and emptiness inside me, a gaping chasm where Asha had once been.
Then, as abruptly as it had gone, Asha’s presence returned and I drew in a great, gasping breath. A wave of relief swept through me. Felena must have taken Asha outside of the Shadow Court’s protective barrier and then teleported—which is why Asha had disappeared from my senses for an instant. Now I could feel her again—both frightened and angry—but the sensations were muted and I realized she’d been taken a long way from here.
But where? Where was she? Where, by the Fates, was my mate?
I had no time to consider an answer, as desperate shouts suddenly echoed behind me.
“Your Majesty! Come quickly! The Spire is under attack!”
I jumped up. I shared a quick, urgent glance with Ffion and then we were both running back through the tunnel, Hawk just ahead of us.
We burst out of the tunnel and into a scene of carnage. Bodies littered the corridor, most of them members of the palace guard. Blood splashed the walls and the stink of entrails and voided bowels made me gag. There was no sign of Rillana, but from up ahead came the sounds of combat.
Hefting my twin blades, I strode down the corridor, kicked the door open at the end, and strode out into the courtyard. There I found Rillana, ringed by a circle of palace guards doing their best to protect her. Stalking her, drawing closer like a pack of wolves around a wounded stag, were five black-clad assassins. Their faces were hidden in the hoods of their deep cowls and they bore no insignia to mark their allegiance but even so, I knew immediately who had sent them.
Felena Sand.
One of them drew a short-bladed throwing knife—Felena’s trademark—and hurled it at Rillana. It flashed through the air and buried itself in her shoulder. The Spire screamed, a red flower forming on her white robe.
With a howl of fury, I charged at the assassins, Hawk and Ffion only a step behind. The assassins whirled calmly to face us, crouched and ready. Fierce fighting broke out on either side of me as Hawk and Ffion engaged their opponents but the assassin ahead of me hesitated, seemed to realize who I was, and then turned and sprinted away from me.
I threw myself after the figure, slamming into their back and sending us both sprawling to the ground. I heard a very female grunt and I managed to flip her over onto her back, pinning her shoulders. The assassin’s hood fell down, revealing a dark-haired Fae I’d never seen before. She had green eyes that blazed with the fevered light of a fanatic.
“Where is your mistress?” I snarled. “Where has she taken Asha?”
The woman didn’t reply. Instead, her knee smashed into my groin and as I grunted in sudden pain, releasing my grip, she scrambled away from me.
I staggered upright. More palace guard were spilling into the courtyard now, engaging the remaining assassins. Ffion was being forced back by a series of lightning-quick strikes by an assassin fighting with two blades, just like I did.
I sprang to my sister’s aid, catching the attackers second blade on my own, tangling the guards of my weapon in hers, and then ripping the blade out of her hand. The assassin pivoted smoothly towards me, a knife sweeping in low towards my stomach, but her eyes suddenly widened as she realized who she was fighting and she pulled the stroke, the blade whipping past my hip instead.
Ffion took advantage of the assassin’s momentary distraction to ram her own blade through the woman’s back so hard that it erupted from her chest. The assassin looked down at the silver protruding several inches from her body, then slid off the blade, collapsing in a lifeless heap on the floor.
Panting with exertion, I looked around. The assassins had been subdued. Four were sprawled in bloody tangles on the ground and would not rise again, the fifth had been stripped of weapons by Hawk and had her hands tied behind her back, glaring at her captor with murder in her eyes.
I sheathed by blades and approached Rillana. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, pressing her hand against the wound in her shoulder. “I’ll live to fight another day.”
I shouted for healers, gave instructions to deal with the dead and wounded, and then made my way over to the assassin kneeling in the middle of the courtyard, Hawk’s naked blade pressed against her throat.
It was the assassin who had refused to fight me. I drew a dagger as I approached her.
Time to get some answers.
ASHA
THE SPIRE. THE SPIRITUAL heart of the Fae people. Both a place and a person. I’d met the person—Rillana and Eliana before her. Now it seemed, it was time to see the place. I had never thought to be making my first visit to the most important site in the Summerlands under such circumstances.
Felena grabbed my elbow and propelled me onto the bridge. It took us a long time to cross but the enormous tower in the distance inched closer. As we drew nearer, I saw that there were other bridges crossing the lake and they all seemed to terminate at the island in the middle from which the tower rose. It was like the center of a wheel with the bridges as spokes.
We saw nobody as we walked and it was eerily silent. There was no wind, no birds, no movement on the lake. Felena said not a word but her expression became more and more intent as we crossed the bridge, as though eager to have this done with. I did not take this as a good sign.
As the end of the bridge came in sight, I realized that the slender tower wasn’t the only thing on the island. A city covered the ground at its base. The buildings were all carved from the same white marble and had a flowing look to them as though they’d been made from a single piece of stone that had been shaped and hollowed. Yet, just like the bridge, the city seemed deserted.
We made our way down a shallowly sloping ramp and onto the island of the Spire. The tower climbed so high it dominated my vision and I had to crane my head back to look up at it.
Awe filled me as I took in the sheer, gargantuan grandeur of the place. So, this was it, the center of Fae culture, a place of history, learning and religion, a place where the priests and priestesses of the Fae lived and worked, keeping separate from the intrigues of the Courts.
And it was here that Eliana Rose had faked her own death, setting in motion a chain of events that had brought civil war to the Summerlands.
I turned my attention to the bond. I could still feel Raven, sense the urgency that pulsed from him, but it was muted and distant and I knew he was a long, long way away.
I’m at the Spire! I thought desperately down the bond at him, knowing that it was futile. He would have no way to tell where Felena had brought me.
The woman grabbed my wrist and steered me into the city. The streets were wide and straight, lined with trees and plants that filled the air with a heady scent. Insects buzzed around the flowers—the first sound I’d heard since arriving at this place—and here and there water fountains cascaded into marble basins.
And still we saw nobody.
“Where is everyone?” I asked. “I thought this place was full of priests and prie
stesses.”
“Gone,” Felena replied. “In this war, even the Spire has to choose a side.”
She brought me to the base of the enormous tower itself. There were no doors, only a series of arched openings that led into a gallery housing a wide staircase that spiraled upwards.
I took one look at the staircase and balked. Felena expected me to climb that? I’d probably pass out before I even got halfway!
But Felena took out her portal cube, spoke a few words, and we winked out of existence again, reappearing inside an octagonal room with high, open windows on every side that looked out over the clouds. I staggered under a sudden wave of vertigo. It was a long, long way down.
The room itself seemed to be a study. A large desk sat against a wall, piled with scrolls and papers. A map of the Summerlands hung above it.
“I’ve got her,” Felena said. “Although why you want her, I can’t fathom. She’s utterly useless as far as I can see.”
“Oh, she’s far from that,” said a voice. “She’s the key to our victory.”
I whirled to see a man standing behind me. He was holding an open book in one hand and was smiling at me. The hairs on my neck rose.
“Hello, Asha,” said Dark Hair.
Chapter 5
RAVEN
The assassin glared at me, not in the least bit cowed by seeing the deaths of her comrades or having a blade pressed against her throat.
I tried unsuccessfully to quell the rage in my heart. This woman formed part of the group that had abducted Asha. I wanted to tear her throat out right there. I wanted to see her blood splatter on the ground. I wanted to hear the breath rush out of her as she died. But I did not move. Instead, I tucked my hands behind my back to keep myself from ripping her head off.
“Time to answer my questions.”
She spat on the ground at my feet. “That’s what I say to your questions, Seelie!”
“I know Felena sent you. I know you work for the Unseelie. Why did you try to kill the Spire?”
