The Faerie Plague (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 5)

by Michelle Madow

  What had he been up to for the past three days?

  I couldn’t wait until we were alone together so he could catch me up. But for now, I needed to focus on every little nuance of each word the Empress said.

  “To a possible alliance,” she said.

  Julian and I repeated her words, and then we drank. The dragon fruit juice was bursting with sweet, delicious flavor, and the milk added a certain amount of comfort to it.

  Julian set his glass down on the coffee table and rested his arms by his sides. Sorcha placed hers back down as well.

  I held onto mine. I needed something to do with my hands, plus, the drink was delicious.

  “The domes around the city and villas are strong, but the afflicted are growing in numbers,” Sorcha started. “And we can’t live in domes forever. So we must figure out a way to save the Otherworld.”

  “I can’t kill the afflicted,” I said. “I’ve already tried.”

  She waved it off. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve already made progress on killing the afflicted.”

  “What kind of progress?”

  Her eyes sharpened. “That’s on a need-to-know basis,” she said. “Right now, I’m concerned about those who have been bitten and have yet to fully succumb to the plague.”

  “You mean the ones who haven’t become full-blown zombies.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Julian told me of this name you call them. Zombies. From what we know so far, there’s an incubation period between when a person gets bitten, and when they become a zombie. The length of this period varies from person to person.”

  Julian rested a hand on mine, and warmth traveled through my body. “We’re curious to see if you can cure someone in the incubation period.” He sounded steady, yet doubtful at the same time.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, and then I refocused on the Empress. “I haven’t come across anyone in that state. So I haven’t had the opportunity to try.”

  “Then you’re in luck,” she said. “Because I have. And she’s safely locked away, anxiously waiting to meet you.”

  SELENA

  A YELLOW-WINGED GUARD brought us average clothes worn by regular fae—colorful, cotton garments with decorative stitching throughout. Sorcha left to change in her quarters. The guard remained in the room with Julian and me as we changed, so we couldn’t speak freely.

  The Empress returned relatively quickly. Her hair was down, and she wore a common light blue dress with purple and silver stitching.

  The colors of my magic. She was goading me. But I pressed my lips together, saying nothing as she used glamour to change her irises from milky blue to bright green, her hair from blonde to brown, and her wings from diamond to topaz.

  She was barely recognizable.

  “Do I have permission to glamour your wings so they appear only light blue?” she asked me. “No fae have wings with more than one color, and we don’t want any unwanted attention.”

  “You do,” I said, and when I glanced back over my shoulder, the purple and silver were gone.

  “Perfect.” She smiled, and looked to the guard. “Tell the servants to prepare Aeliana’s carriage. Then go fetch the Holy Wand. Conceal its true form with glamour, and wait with it outside the door.”

  He bowed his head. “Your Highness,” he said, and he left the room.

  She glanced at the hearth and then back to me. “There’s something important you should know before I unmute your magic and hand you the wand,” she said, and she looked to Julian. “Should I tell her, or shall you?”

  He shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “I will,” he said, and when he looked back at me, he was as serious and intense as he’d been when I’d first entered the room. “While you were sleeping, I spent time with my mom and sister.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said with a smile.

  He didn’t return it. “The empress has generously allowed them to live in a guest suite here in her house,” he continued. “They’re only a few rooms away.”

  He should have sounded happy about it.

  But he didn’t.

  “They’ll remain here as my guests until this mess with the plague is sorted out,” Sorcha told me. “Once I unmute your magic and return the wand to you, I urge you not to try anything against me or my people. I’d have no choice but to retaliate, and we wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to my guests, would we?”

  I stilled, shocked. “You’re threatening them,” I said.

  “I’ve been providing them with the luxury of being guests in my home,” she replied. “What you choose to do with your magic will determine if that experience continues.”

  I glanced over at Julian. He held my gaze, his eyes hard.

  I have this under control, his words from earlier echoed in my mind.

  I’d never do anything to purposefully hurt Julian or his family. The Empress knew this, and she was using it against me.

  As much as I hated to admit it, it was a smart move on her part.

  “I understand,” I said, and she smiled.

  “I knew you would. Now, let’s be on our way.” She led the way out of the room, where the yellow-winged guard stood next to the door, holding a long sword with a gemmed handle. He balanced the point on the ground.

  It had to be the Holy Wand.

  I narrowed my eyes to see through the glamour. But with my fae magic muted, the sword remained the same.

  “You might as well give me my magic back now,” I said to Sorcha. “Since you’ve ensured that I’ll only use it as you please, you don’t have to worry about me using it against you.”

  “Very well,” she nodded, and she reached for my arm.

  I flinched backward.

  “I can’t unmute your magic without touching you,” she said. “Do you want it back, or not?”

  “Of course I want it back.”

  “As I thought.” She rested her fingers on top of the scars on my right forearm, and this time, I didn’t pull away. Her touch tingled, and a wave of release crashed outward through my body. The wave reached my toes, and Sorcha lifted her fingers from my arm and stepped back.

  The scars on my arms glowed blue, purple, and silver, and I sighed as my magic ignited back to life. I reached for it, held up my palms, and created purple and silver orbs that hovered above each of them. Lightning crackled around them.

  I glanced back at the sword and narrowed my eyes. The air around it shimmered, and a ghostlike image of the Holy Wand appeared in its place.

  The orbs in my hands disintegrated, and I moved forward to take the wand. But Sorcha stepped in front of me, stopping me.

  “I’ll give you the wand once we reach our destination.” She took it from the guard and held it inches away from me.

  Electricity crackled at my fingertips. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to shoot lightning at Sorcha’s heart and paralyze her. Julian and I could easily take down the guards, find his mother and sister, and get out of there.

  But Julian had told me to trust his plan. And the last time I’d gone against our plan, I’d nearly killed myself and then woken up with my magic muted.

  So I’d do things his way.

  For now.

  Sorcha nodded. Then she spun around and started down the hall, and Julian and I followed her out to the waiting carriage.

  SELENA

  THE GLASS CARRIAGE was drawn by a regular horse instead of a pegasus. Sorcha and the yellow-winged guard sat facing front. Julian and I had to ride backward. The Empress kept her hand on the wand, and her eyes locked on me.

  The warm aura of the wand kept brushing against my skin, trying to pull me closer.

  Resisting it was nearly torture.

  The ride along the stone roads was bumpy, but it provided me a different view of the city than I’d previously gotten from above. The marble buildings stood strong and proud. I’d seen photos of the ruins of ancient Rome, but it was incredible to see what the buildings would have looked like at the peak of the Empire.r />
  Fae with wings of different colors walked from shop to shop. Some of them traveled by litters carried by half-blood servants. They all wore gloves, they kept a fair amount of distance between each other, and many eyed one another suspiciously.

  “The citizens are on edge because of the plague,” Sorcha said. “I’ve postponed the ball to celebrate your victory in the Games until the city is in better spirits.”

  “That makes sense,” I said, since a ball in my honor was one of the last things I wanted to do right now.

  She nodded and stared absentmindedly out of the carriage.

  Eventually, we stopped in front of a modestly sized house covered with green vines that bloomed with bright pink flowers. The house sat at the edge of the city’s inner circle, right before the gate that separated the shiny, luxurious fae quarters from the drab, crooked insula apartments that housed the half-bloods.

  “This is the safe location I mentioned earlier,” Sorcha said. “Your trainers for the Games—Bryan and Finn—live here.”

  “I thought we were going to a prison?” I asked.

  “We don’t have prisons in the Otherworld,” she said. “When a fae is being investigated for a crime, I mute their strength and magic with my gift. They’re then put under house arrest until their sentence is decided.”

  “And the half-bloods?”

  “Half-bloods are dealt with justly and swiftly.”

  Julian tensed. He didn’t need to say a word for me to understand that the half-bloods weren’t dealt with “justly.” Sorcha clearly believed so, since she wouldn’t have been able to say it otherwise, but her truth wasn’t necessarily the truth.

  “This situation, however, is different,” she continued. “It’s too risky to keep an afflicted fae in my house, as people may find out and talk. And Finn and Bryan are the two best fighters in the city. It made sense to put them in charge of this unique case.”

  Our driver came around and opened the door, ending the conversation.

  Sorcha lifted her skirt as to not trip on the hem, and exited first. “Follow me inside,” she said once she was out of the carriage. “Finn and Bryan are expecting you.”

  Bryan and Finn pounced on me the moment I stepped inside, enveloping me in a group hug. They only let go once I feared I might suffocate.

  Bryan was decked out in a shimmery purple tunic and breeches, and he’d dyed his hair the same bright pink as his wings. Finn wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his breeches hung low to show off his chiseled abs that cut into a defined V down his hips.

  “You did fabulously well in the Faerie Games.” Bryan beamed and pranced around me. “All thanks to your wonderful trainers, of course.” He twirled so pink sparkles swirled around him, and then they twinkled out. “And your soulmate is quite the hottie, if I may say so myself.” He winked at Julian.

  Julian’s cheeks turned red, and his eyes darted around the room, like he didn’t know where to look.

  I stepped to Julian’s side and smiled up at him. “He most certainly is.”

  Sorcha tapped the end of the wand—which was still glamoured to look like a sword—to the marble floor with a thud, and all eyes went to her. “A touching reunion,” she said, and then she dropped her glamour.

  Bryan froze and lowered his gaze. “Your Highness,” he said.

  Finn straightened and bowed his head respectfully. “Your Highness,” he said as well.

  “Bryan.” Sorcha nodded at him. “Finn. I trust everything has been under control here?”

  “It has been.” Finn glanced at the wand in Sorcha’s hand, then looked to me. “I see you chose to give the Holy Wand to the Empress, after all?”

  Right—the orbs had stopped broadcasting our arrival back to the city after Juno had left. That was before I’d tried creating the portal home. The citizens of the citadel were clueless about what had happened after Bacchus had announced that Julian and I were the official winners of this year’s Games.

  And with Sorcha holding Julian’s family under house arrest, I didn’t want to say anything that might anger her or be construed as an attack on her character.

  “She didn’t,” Sorcha said before I could speak. “I’m simply holding onto the wand for safekeeping for now.”

  Finn glanced at me, suspicion in his sharp gaze. “Understood,” he said.

  Bryan brought his hands together and smiled—likely an attempt to diffuse the obvious awkwardness in the room. “Would you all care for a refreshment?” he asked. “Some plum wine, perhaps?”

  “I’ll take you up on that another time,” Sorcha said. “I assume she’s where I last left her?”

  “She is,” Finn said, and Sorcha breezed past him without a second glance.

  She stopped in front of a tall bookshelf in the parlor. Bryan and Finn aimed their magic at it together—a beautiful mix of pink and green—and the bookshelf creaked open, revealing steps so narrow that we had to walk down them in a single-file line.

  The steps took us to a large basement. Cement bricks lined the walls and ceiling, keeping it mildly cool, and the room housed about ten wooden barrels full of what smelled like sweet wine. Weapons and shields decorated the walls like artwork on display in a museum.

  At the very end of the room, a girl with golden blonde hair who appeared to be around my age lay on a twin bed inside of a small, diamond colored dome. Her dim, ash gray wings darkened at the edges.

  Sorcha hurried to the dome and pressed her hand against it. “Kyla,” she said, her voice strangled with far more emotion than I’d ever heard from her. “I brought someone here to help you.”

  Kyla slowly pushed herself up in bed and leaned back against the pillows. “The Holy Wand,” she said, light and dreamlike. “You found it.”

  “It’s here. As is its owner.” Sorcha dropped her arm back down to her side and looked at me over her shoulder. “Selena. Come forward and meet my daughter.”

  SELENA

  I WALKED to Sorcha’s side. Julian stopped a few feet back, to stand with Bryan and Finn.

  Kyla’s big blue eyes had purple bruises beneath them, and her skin was so papery thin that it was nearly transparent. But somehow, she smiled at me anyway. “I watched you in the Faerie Games,” she said. “I was hoping you’d win.”

  “I appreciate your support.” I shifted uneasily, since by winning, so many others had died.

  “Kyla,” Sorcha said, and the girl’s smile disappeared. “As you know, this is Selena, the chosen champion of Jupiter, and one of the winners of this year’s Faerie Games. Selena, this is my daughter, Princess Kyla.”

  I lowered my eyes in the expected display of respect for the Empress’s daughter. “Princess,” I said.

  “Call me Kyla,” she said, far more brightly than I’d expect from someone in her condition.

  “Kyla,” I repeated. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  She beamed like she’d just befriended a celebrity. “You, too,” she said, and then she added, “I’m sorry for how awful I must look.”

  “You don’t look awful.”

  She frowned, since we both knew that wasn’t true.

  Not knowing what else to say to her, I turned to face Sorcha. “Why are you keeping her trapped in this thing?” I asked. “She’s hardly in a condition to hurt anyone.”

  “It’s unknown when the afflicted will fully succumb,” she said. “If it happens here—which, hopefully with your help, it won’t—the dome will keep the plague contained.”

  The plague.

  Not her daughter.

  She sounded so cold and clinical.

  Kyla’s lower lip trembled. She took a shaky breath inward and brushed away a tear.

  “I’ll try my hardest to help you,” I told her. “I promise.”

  “Thank you.” She sounded so full of hope.

  I prayed I wouldn’t let her down.

  Sorcha cleared her throat, although I wasn’t sure whether it was to get our attention or to control her emotions. “We have no time to waste,” she said.
“Kyla, show Selena the wound.”

  Kyla removed her right hand from under the covers. It was covered in black, veiny lines. With her other hand, she pulled the sleeve of her white nightgown up to her elbow. A strip of rough, tan fabric—the same material of the clothes worn by the half-blood servants—was wrapped multiple times around her forearm. She unwrapped it and revealed a deep, bite-shaped wound leaking black, bloody puss. Black veins snaked out of it in all directions.

  My stomach rolled.

  Julian stepped forward, his eyes locked on the wound. “How far up does it go?” he asked, speaking just as clinically as Sorcha.

  “It covers my whole arm,” Kyla said. “It’s on part of my chest, too.”

  “Does it hurt?” I asked, even though from looking at her, the answer was clearly yes.

  She glanced at Finn and Bryan. “They’ve been giving me medicine that’s helping with the pain.”

  “Boswellia?” Julian asked.

  “Willow bark,” she said. “I’ve been chewing on the bark, and drinking it in my tea.”

  Julian eyed her curiously. “And has it slowed the spreading?”

  “We’re unsure, since we have nothing to compare this to,” Sorcha said. “But the infection is approaching her heart, and I fear what will happen once it gets there. The Holy Wand is our only hope.”

  I zeroed in on the wand. “Like I said, I’ll do my best,” I said, and I reached forward to take it.

  She stepped back and held the wand to her chest. “I’ll bring you inside the dome, and then return it to you.”

  “And you’ll give me full, permanent access to enter and exit the dome as I please?” I asked. “And you’ll allow me to keep the wand afterward?”

  “I’ll bring you back out of the dome after you use the wand to attempt to cure Kyla,” she said. “And you can keep the wand so long as you don’t use it against me or my people.”

  I balked at her huge request. “If I need to defend myself with the wand, I will.”

  Then I realized—I had the power in this bargain. Sorcha was desperate to save her daughter. I needed to use that desperation in my favor.