“Anvil,” I said next.
“Aye,” he answered. “Here with Rider.”
That was bad; it meant Rider couldn’t answer. They all must have been thrown as well. And what of our horses? Captured by the fey and already spirited away, I could only presume. My mind was running through scenarios, creating brutal images of an injured Rider. It was all happening so quickly, the space of a few heartbeats slowed in time.
How long had the fey had to move now? How much of an advantage did they gain with every struggled breath?
“Chevelle?” My words were lower now, aware of him but needing to hear he was well. Needing a status on our enemy.
“They are in the west trees,” he answered, his reply two beats lower than mine.
I cursed. “How many?”
“Might as well clean yourself up,” he said. “It looks like we’re going to be here a while.”
I went to draw the magic, but Chevelle’s hand was on mine, pulling me to him and wiping whatever it was free. The cloth he used had its own scent, sharp and stinging. I couldn’t tell if it was simply a cleaning agent… or an antidote. “Poison?” I whispered.
He shook his head.
I could finally see, and I let my gaze fall on the tree line over his shoulder. A few hundred eyes glimmered back at me, waiting. “So they don’t want us dead.”
Anvil’s even voice sent a chill down my spine. “Not yet.”
8
Thea
“Why are you just standing there?” Thea barked. “Go tell Edan something has happened!”
The guards flinched, and Thea wished she could remember their names. The tall one, a stout woman with five-strand braids, reached for the door while the other stammered, “But Liana… she said we should stay.”
Thea marched toward the man, fists clenched at her side. “And when did the high guard start taking orders from the fey?”
His gaze fell, and both guards took to a full run the moment the door was latched behind them.
Thea didn’t know what the pixie had said, couldn’t understand the creature’s strange tongue, but it couldn’t have been good based on the thing’s gestures, some of which she did recognize. A trap. Danger. Help. Thea’s stomach dropped, skin tingling and hands alight with the need to do something, with the certainty that things had gone from bottom-rung bad to worse-as-worse-can-get. They were in the mud now, she knew it, and the fey were the wrong creatures to try to wrestle out of it with.
She returned to Steed’s side, running a damp cloth over the bruised skin of his neck and arm. The changeling woman had given them no further information, she’d merely flicked the pixie free of the sill and slammed the shutters back in place. “Bar the doors!” she’d ordered. “Let no man enter this room.”
Was she going to help them? To truly aim at saving an elven lord and her guard? Thea couldn’t believe it, even with the work the woman had done to save Steed. Thea’s fingers brushed his skin as she worked, and she couldn’t help but wonder at the way Liana’s had done the same. There had been too much tenderness in it, and too much of something that reeked of possession.
“Cursed fairies,” she muttered, dropping the cloth into a basin where it splashed among the remaining roots and herbs.
“Cursed fairies,” a voice agreed.
Thea jumped, hand going to her knife and breath seizing in her chest. Steed groaned.
She moved to him, palm brushing his head, his chest, finding that his temperature and pulse seemed—if not well—at least appropriate for the situation. His eyelids stirred, but did not open. She flicked her wrist at the torches, knocking the fire in three of them out to dim the room.
“Hold there,” she told him. “Let me help you.” She dipped a new cloth in the basin, running it over the skin of his face. The fey woman had covered nearly all of him with paste and powders, though Thea was only certain what a few of them did. “You’re safe here,” she promised. “All is well.”
He breathed out slow, the motion relaxed and grateful. Thea always had been a good liar.
“I can’t move my limbs,” Steed said.
“Yes,” Thea answered. It was how all the healers dealt with serious injury, in horses and with men—immobilize the victim. “We’re patching up your arm is all. You’ve got a bit of a nasty one there.”
His brow drew down, face tensing in pain at the motion. “I don’t remember,” he said.
She brushed his face again, warm water trailing through her fingers to drip off her forearm and wrist. It splattered to the floor at her feet, echoing in the now empty room. “It will come to you. You’ve been given a tonic to help with the pain, it’s probably slogging up the memory.”
“Ruby,” Steed murmured.
Thea didn’t reply, not wanting to explain the treatments had come from a changeling, that his sister was nowhere in sight. Ruby had gone missing, the other recruits had said. Thea hadn’t believed it at first, and then they were there, a handful of the renowned Seven, and the half-human girl who’d become the ruler of the North. Thea had never seen Lord Freya before this day, but by the looks of her, it must have been a terrible battle. She’d been smeared with blood and fey tonics, scrapes and scratches covering her skin. She’d not looked entirely defeated, but none of her personal guard had shown much in the way of hope. And Grey—well, she’d never seen a man with more taken out of him.
Her mouth turned down at the corners, she asked, “Are you having much pain then?” She pressed her fingers into Steed’s palm, worried he was coming out of it too fast, wanting to check for reflexes that shouldn’t be there.
“Where is—” His eyes tightened again, wincing as he worked to find a way to open them. “Was there a fire?”
“Tss—tss,” she hissed, “no need to force them. Let it come.”
The sound was one she’d used on the horses, and she realized too late her mistake. Steed’s muscles—the ones that had regained consciousness—tensed. He managed one eye open to peer at her.
She smiled.
It seemed unfair, given he’d not the ability to jump or flinch from her, but she figured she probably owed him one. Her nose scrunched up involuntarily at the thought.
“Thea,” he whispered. His gaze moved frantically through the room, more like he was in danger than merely disoriented. “Where am I?”
“Not to worry,” she promised. “All is well.” She pressed a hand to his chest in an effort to still his urge to run or fight. “You are home, in your castle away from Camber.” She leaned in. “I have come to visit you.”
His mouth formed a small circle in his confusion and she patted his chest. “It will come to you. All is well, I tell you. You are safe.”
“Why do I not believe you?” he said.
She grinned, cocking a brow. She’d missed Steed. She’d missed all of them. “Remembering a lost bet or two, Mister Summit?” She shook her head. “Some boys, they never learn.”
Thea might have been a good liar, but the Summits had never been fools.
“Now,” she said, pushing her hair back from her face. “Be still and quit your chatter. I’ve got some mixing to do.”
It was the first true thing she’d said to him. If she didn’t get a new tonic in him before Liana’s wore off, she was going to be corralling a wounded bear. It might have been a while since she’d seen Steed, but she knew his character.
The moment he found out his sister was gone, nothing would stop him from going after her. Injuries and all.
9
Ruby
“Vex you, you heathen goats!” Ruby spat, jerking a shoulder despite the eight-way restraints holding her down. The ties at her wrists cut and burned, their magic some sick method of spell-woven hemp and plateroot. “When I get free of this”—she let her narrowed gaze pick off her captors one by one—“I’m going to brand you like the fetid livestock you are.”
She’d been cursing and sputtering since the last of the rock-strewn ridges, and she was nearly out of productive expletives.
At this point, the exercise was wearing on even her, but it was the irritation of her captors that she was truly after.
None of them so much as looked at her.
Finally.
She let her head drop back for one brief moment, centering herself for what was about to come. And then she spun—tethered to a spit as she was—binding the hands of the spider at her feet within his own woven rope. They’d not trusted her to be secured only to the rod, despite the fact that she’d never been able to fly, and it was about to be their undoing.
The cold metal pendant she’d finally worked free of her leather corset had slid on its chain up her exposed breastbone when she’d thrown her head back, and now it dangled within reach—if only she had the unrestricted hands to seize it. She flipped again, bucking and jerking until it bounced off her chin, and then she was chasing it, neck twisting while the seven remaining spiders struggled to regain control. Two of them jerked from opposite ends and she was strung back to straightened, the force of it nearly making her call out.
But she did not, because clasped within her teeth was the small golden pendant that had taken her half the day to work free. One of the spiders gave her a strong elbow to the back and the spit she was tied upon rocked as they righted her once more.
“Still yourself, halfling, or we shall skin you on this pole and taste the meat off your bones by nightfall.” The spider was tall and lean, ebony tattoos adorning the curves of his face, the sharp lines of his eyes. He leaned in close. “Would you like that, halfling? To go in fire?”
Ruby smiled.
It was not the nicest of smiles, tinged with a bit of malice and short on teeth. But she’d not much to work with given the pendant perched between four of her front teeth. She chomped down, the warning call from the spider cut short as the powder reached his throat. His expression fell, the muscles of his face giving way an instant before those that helped him breathe. He clutched his chest, stopping despite their procession moving on, and another spider glanced back to see why he’d faltered.
Ruby closed her lips around the crushed pendant and blew. The remaining powder caught the spider sidelong, but it was already relaxing the blink of his eye. It would work.
She just had five left.
One spider’s fist busted her in the jaw, throwing the empty pendant to the ground. She spat, but none of the residue was left in her mouth—all she could taste was blood. They were being smart. They kept moving, marching deeper into the shadowed forest, nearer and nearer what she feared was the worst place she could be, not stopping to drop her or kick her ribs again, and that left her with a harder fight. She needed to get within reach of them. She needed to finish this now.
“It’s too late for you,” she told them. “The poison is spreading. Do you feel that tickle in your throat, that itch beneath your fingers?” It was trickery, but she couldn’t have been so far off. None of them had stopped for a drink since they’d left the castle, and she herself was feeling the strain of a long day’s fight. “That’s the first sign,” she promised. “Soon it will reach your blood. Soon it will crawl into your heart.”
She heard the tearing of cloth, some shred of fabric ripped from the spider’s thin cloak, and a tattooed hand moved to muzzle her. She snatched at it, biting down hard, and worked not to gag as she clamped her teeth tight against bone.
The spider screamed, burning-hot venom leaching through the wound. The caravan stopped then, the remaining spiders dropping the spit to free her current victim. The force of it was too strong for her already damaged jaw, and he was pulled from her grasp as she slammed into the packed earth beneath them.
Packed earth. They were too close.
A thin leather boot slammed into her stomach, and she retched, blood and bile pooling into the dark green moss. The earth was damp and cold and she pressed her cheek to it, willing her weak limbs to feel their fight once more. She could not let herself be taken there. She could not let this be the end of her.
The boot came at her again, shoving her contraption and all to stare at the canopy of trees. It would be getting dark soon, black night in the kingdom of the fey. The spider cursed down at her, his narrow face and long brow formed into a menacing scowl.
She could let them kill her here. That would be better, she supposed. “Curse you,” she muttered back at him. “May the fires of Hollow Forest swallow your screams.”
He kicked her again, letting go a drawn-out, nasty line of expletives regarding her mother and some supposed mating with horses.
And then his words cut off, choked in half. Ruby stared in shock, eyes wide and mouth agape. The spider stood above her, his silken cloaks and woven leathers unmoving in the still air as the shaft of fine carved wood protruded from his chest. The wood was familiar, crafted by magic and turned deadlier by one simple trick.
She drew in a sharp, hysterical breath. It was a poison arrow.
The air whistled with two more shafts, and the spider before her fell to the ground at her feet.
“Four,” she whispered, her mental count of the captors at her side.
She was shoved in the scuffle that followed, but she’d spotted guard-issue boots in the instant before she was moved. Two more muffled thuds as spiders dropped to the ground, and then the snuffling of breaths, the pad of paws. It was the wolves. One of her Seven and the wolves.
“The forest,” Ruby called to them. “There are six and ten in the forest.”
“Three then,” Rhys answered. “We took out thirteen in the Cold Pines.”
Ruby breathed deep, something like a sigh. She’d heard the rustling then, thought it to be lesser fey, watching as their trophy was carried to the keeper. Someone called out, and there was more shuffling around her, the heat of fire, a blast of wind. Growling wolves, tearing meat.
And then it was quiet, and Rhys was unlacing the ties at Ruby’s hands and feet. Her arms felt weak and prickly, and she couldn’t quite find the control to bring them to her sides or rub her wrists. Salve, she thought, what I wouldn’t give for some salve. Had her feet been bare, she might have had worse wounds along her ankles. But she’d been fortunate, at least, that they’d taken her in the dead of night, and she’d been dressed for fighting. She’d been fortunate that she’d learned to plan ahead.
Rhys inspected her wounds swiftly, giving a cursory glance to the bruising that covered the side of her face. “On your feet, Ruby.”
She stared at him, sudden horror stealing her calm. “Where are the others?”
“Anyone knows.” He glanced over his shoulder, the wolves still on high alert.
“No.” Ruby grabbed his arm, her grip pained and feeble, her fingers covered in scuffs and tonic and more than a little blood. “No,” she told him. “You can’t be here alone. There have to be more of you.”
Rhys gave her a glance. “Take it as it is, Ruby. Now, I suggest you find your feet.”
Run, she thought, find your feet and run. But it was too late for that, too late for even the words. A cloud of ash fell upon them, sudden and heartrending. All she could do was tighten her grip, to give Rhys that one final warning before the burning wind hit them hard. A wolf screeched, a terrible yowl that fell dead against the thick forest surrounding them.
“They’re in the trees,” she choked out. “They’re taking us to Hollow Forest.”
She felt Rhys flinch. And then there was nothing.
10
Frey
We were centered in the ravine, a shallow creek running over the rock behind us, open grass before the line of trees. We’d made it through the water before they’d gotten to us, some explosion of magic that I’d not quite pieced together given the pounding in my head.
I stood, biting down against the pain that stabbed my side. Chevelle and Grey had gotten to their feet as well, but Anvil stayed kneeled beside Rider, pressing a palm firmly to the space between his shoulder and chest. It ignited fury in me.
“Out with you,” I screamed.
Scattered giggles echoed thr
ough the trees, but the leaves did not shiver. I blasted the thick trunks of a half-dozen, blowing them from the rock-strewn earth below. Chevelle reached for me, his touch a reminder of my mistake. I tied the power through him, watching as the lesser fey scattered over the ground and into the air. The sun was getting low in the sky, bruising the clouds and glinting off fey wings.
“This ends now,” I warned, stepping forward and raising my palms toward the broken line of trees. We had no time for this, for the games of the lesser fey.
Eight dark figures crossed the space, two more rolling out of the trees. A chill wind met my face, but it did not have the scent of the nature surrounding us. Grey stepped beside me, the quiet hiss of his sword passing metal the only sound. They were not simply lesser fey.
There were only three of us. Four if Anvil could find a way to leave Rider’s side. I might have brought an army, but I hadn’t wanted more, hadn’t wanted it to look like an act of battle and hadn’t wanted to risk anyone outside my guard. The high fey would have burned through them in minutes in their own lands. With unrestricted access to the base magic, almost all of the fey were stronger there, too strong for anyone but the most powerful elves to fight.
It was why we’d never crossed into their lands without good reason. It was why Ruby was in such great danger alone.
“Come out, or die like cowards,” I told the trees. “This is your last chance.”
A thousand fears swam through me. The fey were clever and treacherous and this was not the easiest we’d been caught. There was more, some trap, some unseen plan they’d laid into place, and even standing on these rocks we were at risk of falling into it.
I called the power forward. The earth beneath us shook, rattling stone against stone. A line of high fey seemed to materialize in the clearing across from us, their gray forms shifting out of haze.
The Frey Saga Book IV Page 5
