A curse slipped from Chevelle beside me. These were not the shadow stalkers we expected. These were so much worse.
I drew my sword free of its scabbard, readying my stance for the coming blow. A low laugh rumbled through the ground beneath my feet, and the hazy forms slipped into clouds of smoke. Too fast, the smoke was upon us, an ashen hand solidifying into a fist mere inches from my ribs. I swung, blade slicing naught but air, and a trail of smoke followed the steel. It curled and writhed, twisting again to a flesh-like mass, and I was staring into the colorless face of a creature neither elf nor fey.
It was a spell—I knew it was a spell—but when the thing smiled, I couldn’t help but take a swing again. “Who’s doing this?” I asked Chevelle over my shoulder. “Who here has this kind of power?”
He was muttering words, gathering power and gaining on a plan to stop them. Grey answered for him.
“There are too many of the spelled beasts here at once. If it’s only a single fey doing this, then there can’t be a handful capable, not at this level.” The most powerful fey rarely ran in packs, and these things looked too similar to have been created by different people. A vaporous form lunged, and Grey struck, his blade catching in viscous black goo. He jerked, brushing my shoulder with his, and added, “If it is merely one, and this far out and near the boundary, there can be only one of two high fey behind it.”
I knew the first possibility: Veil. But this wasn’t his style. Even with the warnings, even with the fear of retribution from the court, Veil would never use these soulless abominations to do his work. That only left one other, and the idea of it made my stomach turn.
“Keane!”
Chevelle stiffened beside me, but not, I thought, because he’d not already considered the possibility. His surprise was more likely due to the fact that I’d called the man out.
Black dripped from Grey’s sword tip, melting rock where it landed before our feet. “You may want to hurry that up,” Grey whispered toward Chevelle, whose hands were occupied with both sword and powder.
The latter, I hoped, was something that might keep their insides from burning us alive.
My eyes fell again to the tree line, skirting those shapeless clouds that rolled in and out of form. He had to be out there. Keane had to be within casting range to make this work. The nearest mist went solid and a hand was reaching for my throat. I thrust my blade forward, into the thing’s soft stomach and up through its head. That gained me no more than a spray of darkness, its remnants splashing against the earth before it hissed and sizzled trying to eat up damp ground.
“Running water,” Grey muttered from behind me. I scanned the field, wondering again how they’d managed to bring their magic so close to the elven barriers. Had they poisoned it? Turned the earth? Or had we been tricked, deceived into believing these were the same grounds? No, not all of us. One or two and they might have had a chance to disguise the area enough to deceive, but there were five of us, and none easily fooled.
Someone stronger then. Someone capable of a power that could overcome what lay beneath us.
“There,” I whispered, finally seeing the source of the magic—but a mass of dark grey flesh slammed into me, knocking me flat on the ground. There were six of them now, suddenly formed and stable and shoving me into the dirt. Grey was moving, and Chevelle, but I could see no more than flashes of them between the creatures that shoved at my head and neck. They were pushing me down, crushing my face into the damp clay earth. Their bony fingers covered my shoulders and limbs, clawing; I couldn’t even feel for my sword beneath the weight of them.
It wouldn’t help, I realized. I couldn’t cut them. No one could cut them. Not when their insides were poisonous sludge. There was a screeching howl and then something clamped onto the meat of my arm. I tried to scream, but my face was crushed, and when the burning started I knew one had bitten through the skin. My body reacted, wanting to buck and fight, but there was no way to remove them. There were too many and I was too small.
They weren’t magic. I couldn’t even reach them with that. They were spells, darkness. They were words and power, vile and nasty and drawn from the earth, and no one could beat them without resorting to the same malevolence themselves. Chevelle, my brain told me. Chevelle has the magic. He will save you. Just keep breathing. I whimpered, the sound lost between the sodden clay and crush of hands.
I was running out of air.
There was a blast of power, a percussion from the ground beneath me, and suddenly we were all flying through the air. I was weightless, being pulled in all directions, and felt the brush of so many legs and hands. Some of them tried to grab at me, grappling for skin and cloth and purchase wherever they might, but they were dissipating, falling into the mist from which they’d been formed.
And I slammed into the ground on the other side of the ravine.
Chevelle had thrown me to safety, the barrier of water and rock and ancient elven runes keeping any more attacks at bay. My chest ached, my ears rang, and the bites from the spelled creatures continued to burn. But I was safe.
My temple felt damp, but it wasn’t from the cold water trickling over stone. It was blood.
My blood.
Keane had spilled an elven lord’s blood onto the ancient battle ground of the elves and fey, and I was going to have his head for it.
My fingers curled into the stones beneath me, finding clay and silt and the coolness of mountain water. I pressed myself up, fighting the vertigo to stare across the field as the line of fey waited in their trees. Magic coursed through my hands, surging into the earth and shaking the stones. I sent it through the ravine and into the roots of those trees, crushing and burning and destroying as quick as a breath. The tree line fell, age-old oaks and ashes and thorns crashing to the soil that surrounded them.
And I was caught. In a heartbeat.
Sharp and quick, snares wrapped around and through my magic, seizing it beneath the earth. Panic surged and I tugged, instinctually pulling at the magic beneath me. It stayed there, snared, caught in some net by these hundred fey. I gasped, the breath ragged and sharp. My skin was a thousand knives and my chest drowned in terror. It hadn’t been the ravine at all. Not the spells, not what waited in the trees.
This had been a diversion, a way to get me back across the barrier, to separate us. To sort me from—terror filled me and my eyes shot to Chevelle, as he stared back at me.
I might have thrown up my hands to warn him, but they were rooted to the earth, unable to release the magic and unable to draw it free. Something was coming, some new fey treachery, and hot, helpless tears threatened to break free. Chevelle.
Chevelle.
I found myself mouthing the word, my one weakness and the one thing I was suddenly powerless to change. They had bested me. They had known.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Chevelle’s brow drew down, uncharacteristically allowing his confusion to show. And then he turned, hands thrown forward and power blasting toward the fey within the cover of fallen trees. They began to sway and grumble, moaning and chirping like a night forest, crawling knee over hand onto the downed trunks as they waited for what was to come.
As they waited for Keane to reveal the rest of his plan.
11
Veil
“Are you telling me it actually worked? That the Lord of the North and her high guard fell for it?” Veil slammed a chalice onto their workspace and Flora bared her teeth, hissing as weeks’ worth of toil splashed free of its vessel.
Virtue smiled. “Like babes to a lodestone.” She watched him, fingertips trailing along the edge of the soft leather armor that protected her lavender skin.
Veil had a particular interest in the heliotropes, but it wasn’t due to the hue of their flesh. It was that they could hypnotize, given the proper attention, and right now it was the one thing that could do him in.
Because on the right occasions, it worked both ways, and they could gather bits and pieces of what you wer
e thinking.
What Veil was thinking was bad.
You can’t go to her, Virtue’s smile seemed to say. No matter what happens, you can’t go.
“Tell him the rest,” Flora said from her place at the worktable. She’d not even looked up, but the power was especially potent between the two.
Virtue huffed, her fun spoiled. “The changeling had her own agents among those who laid the trap. She’s abandoned her charge in the castle. It appears she heads for the elven lord with plans to intervene.”
Veil felt his face go slack. “Liana?” That woman was an enigma in the worst way. It was impossible, but it seemed she consistently drew on the base magic whenever she needed it, no matter that the elven lands were barren. No matter that even he couldn’t reach it among those lands.
“I will keep you abreast,” Virtue promised, feral grin back in place.
Veil flicked a hand to shoo her away. It didn’t matter now.
Whatever the cost, it was too late to do anything but act.
12
Frey
Keane stepped out of the trees, his dark skin glinting in the sun like the husk of a sap beetle. He was huge, even from across the clearing, and his eyes were narrowed in a grin. “Caught,” he bellowed to his followers, raising his arms in a gesture that encompassed us all. “Netted in a web of your own making.”
I growled.
Keane laughed. “Ah, but it is, precious Freya. For you have stepped onto fey lands.” He sauntered forward, careful enough to suggest he was staying within two lines. Like he’d laid protection in advance, and if that were true, we’d not be able to retaliate with spells unless he was persuaded out of them. Keane’s gaze roamed the field, purposefully finding my guard as he spoke to me. “We can forgive your trespass, I suppose, given that you are now on the other side. But your friends…”
His fingers curled inward, biting air, and I could feel the power building within them.
Even from this distance.
Chevelle and the others were frozen, but I had no way of knowing whether it was Keane’s power or that they had nowhere to run. Electricity crackled in the sky, heavy drops of rain splattering on only one side of the ravine. The trees were gone, but the wind rustled unseen though what still sounded like broken leaves. This was the fey.
This was the worst of them.
I couldn’t let my own power go, couldn’t give it to Keane. I couldn’t even risk walking across the barrier, not with it so firm in fey hands, not with the ravine separating us. And the others couldn’t come to me, could they? It would look like backing down, and you never backed down with a fey horde on you. They would be eaten alive by so many. And Rider was downed—I couldn’t even see what was wrong with him, hadn’t had a moment to check. They wanted him, didn’t they, wanted Chevelle so that they had control of me.
I swallowed hard against a dry throat, my ears still ringing, pulse pounding at the wound in my head. The bites burned like hot coals, and it was spreading.
“I don’t trespass,” I heard myself say. “I come on invite from your king.”
Keane roared, moving forward and, apparently, nearly out of his path of safety. He checked his step, placing one foot firmly in front of the other. “We of fire have no king!”
I shrugged, the movement a dagger in my injured side. “King, chief, royal head of a demon court, I don’t care what you call his gloriousness.” I forced the corner of my mouth to twitch, despite the busted lip. “But he rates higher than you.”
I scanned the clearing with my mind again, desperate for some sort of wildlife. A bird, a dog, a rabid muskrat if it could just cross those magic barriers and get him off his feet. I wondered briefly if Chevelle would attempt to spellcast, but there were so many high fey here. And I was out of reach of all of them.
Keane shot a hand out and fire blasted the ground at Grey’s feet. Flame shot over Grey’s pants like a lantern had burst, but it wasn’t the heat of small flame. It was hot—boiling—and despite his familiarity with fire, a scream tore from Grey’s throat.
Chevelle moved, apparently not frozen at the hands of the fey, and knocked Grey off his feet. The instinct to go to them pulled at me, but the power tied to the fey kept me in place. Chevelle was shouting, tossing powders and mixes from his belt, and I prayed Grey would be safe. I prayed for some way out of this.
I submit, my mind yelled. Don’t hurt them, let me submit. But surrender would do nothing. This was the fey.
“You harm those of my Seven?” I challenged. “You dare raise a hand in aggression to those under the protection of invitation from the fey court?” I stepped forward, boots splashing into the edge of moving water. “On this land created by the grace of the ancients who allowed you to live?”
Chevelle had put the inferno that was Grey out, Grey’s leather pants intact but the sleeves of his shirt tattered and revealing blistered skin. Chevelle cut loose the metal armor, the heat of the fire turning it to branding iron. If we got him out alive, if we got Ruby back, she might be able to heal him.
Keane stared at me, no more bothered by the scene playing out before him than by the buzzing of flies. “Foolish girl, you think I don’t know your threats are empty. What fey court would invite you unattended to cross our borders?”
“And yet you knew I was coming,” I said flatly. Because he took her? Because he has Ruby?
He sighed. “These games grow old. I submit we move on to new ones.” His face was too narrow, his limbs too sharp. The shadows of those lines did nothing to conceal the spikes of bone, meant for tearing at flesh, destroying his prey. If ever a fey looked evil, it was Keane. He used it to his advantage. “There.” He snapped his finger at the high fey to his right. “Have at them.”
Liana’s warning rang in my ears: Do not spill the blood of the high fey. It wasn’t meant to caution me at the castle at all, I realized. It was here. The warning applied now. Fey lands, the boundary, a truce and treaty created by the ancients. My chest thundered with a new thrill of fear.
I moved forward, the water’s current pushing at my calves as I dragged the power with me, as two dozen high fey rushed Chevelle and Anvil, as Grey waited on his knees, as Rider lay flat on his back. “Liana,” I screamed to them. “Liana!”
Chevelle’s sword was drawn, his back to me as he prepared to fight, and I couldn’t know if he had heard me over the squall of so many eager fey.
I braced myself, willing the words to cross the void, for him to understand the danger. “LIANA!”
A soft splash sounded behind me, light enough I shouldn’t have heard. But I had. “Yes, dear one.”
I turned, breath coming too fast, chest sharp with pain.
It was Liana.
Here.
The clash of metal and boom of power sounded behind me, but the clearing was a mask of smoke and ash. Chevelle had conjured beast-things, narrow and viney, covered in thorns. Or was that the fey? Trees spelled to life by the fire fey’s horde? I didn’t know what was happening, but it was bad. A blade sliced through the clouds of smoke, dark figures moving in and out. The lesser fey watched from their perches, hooting and howling despite the forest having been destroyed. I couldn’t see Anvil. I couldn’t see Grey. I was going to let go of the power. I was going to go to them, to walk away from my position and give up everything we’d tried to gain.
I wasn’t strong enough.
Liana stepped beside me. “My,” she said. “What a glorious mess we have here.”
My gaze snapped to her once more, imploring she fix it. Do something before I ruined us all.
“A trade?” she offered.
“Liana,” I growled.
She sighed. “Fine. You will repay me later.”
Her lithe form moved forward, the pale pink of her flesh muddying as she crossed the river stones, momentarily going true-to-form until the water and smoke caught and shaded her to the steel of a polished blade.
Her magic rolled through the clearing without much resistance and I knew Keane
had not yet joined the fray. He was letting his underlings play, giving them a treat for holding his line. Liana was strong. She was old for a changeling, and had the years to gather magic and spells, the talent for collecting power into stones to use at her leisure. But Keane was stronger, and given the chance, he could break her in two.
When the smoke cleared, the others paused, bloodied and breathless, high fey grinning their pleasure as my guard stood beaten and bruised. Chevelle didn’t look at me. He knew better.
“That one,” Liana announced with a gesture toward Grey, “is a far bigger prize.” Her voice rang clear, the spelled words amplified, laced with magic to not only cut through the sound, but to truly be heard. “He is a toy of the halfling, and you’d be a fool to spoil him here.”
Her head tilted, gaze turning to Anvil. “And he, more powerful with the elements than half these high fey.” She clicked her tongue. “Honestly, Keane, you disappoint even me.” She hadn’t mentioned Rider, for which I was grateful. No sense in pointing out the one whose brother might be on the spiders’ tails. The one person who had a chance of locating Ruby.
Keane straightened, the sneer wiped from his face. He didn’t like Liana, but I wasn’t sure he’d kill her. Not when she had ties to so many of his kind.
Not when she’d made so many deals.
“Be gone with you,” he answered. “This is no business of yours.”
“Ah, but it is.” She shot a finger toward Chevelle. “This one is mine.”
13
Frey
Keane’s feet didn’t move forward, but he twitched with an apparent urge to come after Liana. “The Second is mine. I will cut him in threes before you leave here with him.”
“Threes?” Liana considered this, perusing Chevelle where he stood, sword in hand. She was no fool, but Liana couldn’t have known I’d name him my Second. That was merely an unexpected bonus to a deal that would be sweet for his other ties to me. She shook her head. “Not today, thank you. I need him for a few tasks first.”
The Frey Saga Book IV Page 6
