by K. M. Shea
Fax struck the ground with his hoof, and I set a hand on his neck as I watched the screens.
Leila and her deadly pets were almost to the halfway point of the boardwalk.
The drone fluttered down to get a better shot, and from this angle you could see how nervous the night mares were.
They tossed their heads, swished their tails, and their ears were ever moving as sweat streaked their hides. They were so nervous, the sweat had created a froth on their legs, and a few of the animals drooled red and snorted sparks.
I hope you know what you’re doing, Queen Leila.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Leila
The night mares were terrified.
Behind me, they snorted and tossed their heads. Sweat dripped off their necks, shoulders and chests, and at one point Comet charged a few steps, barely stopping before she slammed into the rail.
We were in the middle of the lake now, as far away from land as we’d get.
My stomach had numbed in my fear, and I knew that if the night mares didn’t calm down, we’d be in a very dangerous position.
Blue Moon’s hide twitched, but when I put a hand on his shoulder he calmed, his ears perking.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I murmured to him. “We’re going to be fine.”
He exhaled deeply, and his steps became surer.
Relieved, I twisted around in my saddle to look at the others.
Nebula stopped. She planted her front feet, and her whole body shook as she was unable to take another step.
Behind her Twilight rolled his pale yellow eyes and shrieked; his breathing was twice as fast as it should have been as something white dripped from his nostrils.
The others weren’t faring any better.
I have to reassure them.
My heart twisted at the sight of my scared horses. “Eclipse, Solstice, Comet, Twilight, Nebula, we’re going to be okay, I promise.”
The night mares perked their ears as they listened to my voice.
“I will never let anyone harm you. I will never send you off without me,” I vowed. “I’m here with you, and I promise we’re going to get through to the other side. Don’t look at the water, watch me.”
Nebula exhaled hard, then rocked forward into a shaky walk.
Up and down the line, the night mares tucked their chins, their eyes fixed on me as they followed.
It was then that I really understood the depth of their intelligence—and the intelligence of fae creatures.
They were trusting me. They’d listened to my words and were choosing to override instinct because I asked them to.
I don’t deserve them.
They clopped across the boardwalk, and I talked to them the whole way, my voice getting stronger and surer the closer we got to land.
Blue Moon shuddered with relief once he stepped off the wooden boardwalk and onto the dirt walking trail.
Eclipse tucked her butt under her and scurried after us, Solstice just a few steps behind her.
The horses breathed easier once they stepped on to land, and they inspected the bike trail. Wide enough for one car, the trail traveled both north and curved to the south and east—the portion we wanted to travel.
It was walled in with shrubs and a little wooden fence, but it was a much wider and more secure path. And—most importantly—it was a long, abandoned stretch of good footing.
“This is it, my beauties!” I called to them as the last night mare reached land with a relieved huff. I glanced up at the drone hovering above us, which emitted a high-pitched whirl as it buzzed around us. “Let’s show everyone what you have!”
I cued Blue Moon into a canter, and he ripped loose.
I swear I felt a dark and wild magic ripple around us as he lengthened his stride, his hooves thundering against the dirt path.
I leaned low over his neck, every muscle in my body tightened. I squeezed Blue Moon with all the muscles in my legs and pushed down in the saddle stirrups as wind ripped at my clothes.
Eclipse galloped at our side, her body long and lean as she ran wilder than the wind.
As we galloped, there was something silvery about the moment.
It was like the night mares were glowing from within. The bony, malnourished look blurred and faded, and between the tears from the wind and the weirdness of the moment, it was like a silvery shadow enveloped them, and I felt a beauty beyond words.
I blinked, and the feeling was gone, but the night mares pounded along, their hooves tossing clods of dirt and turf as we raced between the blue lakes, closing in on the end of the path.
Soon, we’d rejoin the other racers.
I only hoped we could scoot to safety before they started fighting.
Chapter Thirty
Rigel
“There goes Lord Umer into the park—he’s just used his cheat,” King Solis grunted. “He rides a sun stallion—I’m almost certain he uses a portal to jump from this park to the one farther east, but I don’t know how he does it with wards.”
“Look!” Lord Linus pointed to the queen.
Leila had gotten the night mares off the boardwalk, and they were now galloping down what appeared to be a small walking trail or bike path.
But galloping wasn’t a strong enough word—the night mares were moving so swiftly they were streaks of black rippling through reality.
The drone was struggling to keep them within sight, they were moving that fast.
Murmurs of surprise broke out through the crowd, and when I looked at the largest TV screen—which marked out where the participants were on the map—I joined them.
“By the holy—she’s in the front,” I said.
The night mares—moving at speeds no other mount could ever catch them at and using a path that cut off a great deal of the distance the other riders had traveled—were closing in on the finish line. Fast.
Their black dots skipped across the screen, visibly faster than all the other participants.
They’re going to win. Because the night mares love her—they’re going to win!
Chapter Thirty-One
Leila
The night mares slowed down to a trot when we crossed a wooden bridge and the walking/bike trail melded with the boardwalk, and then we crossed into one of the small, city run beaches, that was just off main street.
I exhaled, and glanced back at my night mares. “You guys are amazing!” I praised as we crossed the five parking spaces marked out in front of the beach and stepped into the main drag of downtown Magiford. “We just have to go due east, and we’re finished!”
The night mares started to adjust their strides—getting ready to rock into a canter—when the feeling of magic slammed into me, and I slumped over Blue Moon’s neck.
It was a confusing mix of sensations—the unforgiving hardness of metal, but the wild abandon of vines of ivy slowly taking over a garden. It was the edge of the sword, and the softness of feathers.
This wasn’t fae magic, or any kind of wizard or shifter magic. It was something I had never felt before. And whatever it was, it felt old and beyond my reckoning.
What is that?
“Hold up.” I held my arm out to stall the night mares as I twisted wildly in my saddle, trying to track down the sensation as I peered up and down the empty street.
I didn’t see anything, except for a spot of shadows that seemed weirdly placed. Or maybe it was that it didn’t sit quite right.
I narrowed my eyes and pulled my prism from the pocket of my breeches. What scared me was that the familiar flood of magic that flowed through the prism didn’t bring the usual reassurance.
Instead, it seemed to amplify the weird shadow.
As I watched, the shadow moved, crawling toward us.
It stopped, and I heard a sniffing noise that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Then, a creature popped out of the shadows, jumping into the human world.
Its torso was shadowy and incorporeal, as it swung short but thick arms tipped with han
ds that had too few fingers and ended in claws. Smoke seemed to swirl around it and trail behind the tips of its claws, leaving black gouges in the air. Its legs were long and spindly with too many toes, a gross contrast to its head—which seemed to flicker back and forth between the smooth head of a bird with a jagged beak, and the flat, smashed face of something uncomfortably humanoid but eerily alien.
It raised its head to the sky and roared—or, at least, I think it did. Rather than exhaling a sound, air, debris, and even I felt pulled in to the creature as if by a vacuum.
Solstice—the largest of the night mares—charged it with a glass-shattering scream.
“Solstice—no!” I shouted.
He ignored me.
“Astrum!” I shouted, activating my prism.
Purple magic flowed from the glass crystal. I snatched the magic up as fast as I could and forged a ward that glowed around the gelding’s hooves. I finished—creating a barrier taller than Solstice—just before the creature jabbed a clawed arm at him.
My barrier held, but it fizzled and sparked as the creature tried to claw through it with another soundless shriek.
Is this one of those attacks King Solis talked about? But I don’t see anyone around here, or feel any fae magic—and I’m standing directly beneath a drone!
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I yelled.
That drew the thing’s attention to me. It switched from its bird head to its flat face and sniffed, slowly turning in my direction. It blinked its tiny, slitted eyes at me, then abruptly froze.
“Come on!” I shouted.
Before any of the night mares moved, it launched itself at me, using its powerful arms like a gorilla and pushing off the ground.
The point of my prism bit into my palm as I forged a ward, which quickly bloomed into a barrier and protected Blue Moon and myself.
The creature smashed into my ward, leaving a smoky residue on the surface when I pulled back.
To my horror, the residue seemed to eat through my ward, weakening it.
It smashed its fist into the barrier, then hooked its claws into the surface, slicing straight through.
I nudged Blue Moon, who finally launched into a canter. But before he’d taken more than three steps, the monster’s fist broke through my barrier, and it grabbed onto the back of my neck, ripping me off the saddle and throwing me to the ground.
I slammed into the paved road with a pained wheeze, and the creature was on me, its fingers tightening around my neck as its claws bit into my skin.
One of the night mares screamed, and Nebula and Twilight charged it. They each bit it on the elbows, their jagged teeth digging into its flesh and their yellow eyes gleaming with a wild frenzy as they bit chunks out of its arms.
The creature screamed, but the smoky haze that curled around it settled over the wounds, restoring it.
Comet joined Nebula and Twilight, scraping her hooves down the monster’s side.
It let go of me long enough for me to flip so I was belly down. I tried to scramble to my feet, but it latched onto my lower back, its nails digging into my muscles. It slammed me to the ground, and I whimpered.
Worse than the pain, I briefly opened my hand, and my prism fell from my grasp and rolled down the street.
“No!”
I heard hooves, and I saw a rider on a sun stallion come pounding down the street. The rider wore the crest of the Summer Court—a bird silhouette on a blue sky. This was probably the cheating rider King Solis had warned me about.
When he saw us he slowed his horse to a trot. The sun stallion snorted and tossed its head, frightened by the monster.
“Help—please!” I begged.
The rider smirked at me, then kicked his horse.
The sun stallion squealed and refused to go, but the rider ripped on the reins, painfully hauling the horse’s head around, and he kept kicking the animal until it shot past us, leaving us alone.
Fae are the worst. They won’t help, even if someone is in real danger? Why do I even care about these people?
Chapter Thirty-Two
Rigel
“Send someone to help her!” Lord Linus had a derby official by the collar of his shirt, and his voice had lost its usual happy tone for a darkness that promised death.
“W-we can’t interfere!”
Lord Linus shook the employee. “This isn’t allowed by the rules—there’s a monster attacking her! And it’s not a fae monster! Get. Her. Help!”
King Solis was pale as he watched the screen—where Leila screamed in pain while the monster dug its claws into her back. “Escape, Queen Leila. Escape,” he whispered, as if he could will it. His eyes flickered to the monster she was fighting, and he shivered at its grotesque features.
One of the night mares rammed into the monster—the smaller mare named Eclipse, if I properly remembered the queen’s stupid names.
The monster staggered, then ripped its claws higher up Leila’s back so it could keep her pinned to the ground by stepping on her lower back and stand up straight to face the night mares.
Leila writhed in pain, and the creature shook when the mare charged it again, then clawed at her neck, raking its claws deep into her neck.
The mare stumbled and screamed.
The monster looked up, straight into the drone’s camera. It picked a decorative rock from a bunch piled around the base of a tree on the sidewalk—keeping Queen Leila pinned—then flung it at the drone.
The TV screen turned black as the feed was dropped, the camera—or drone—destroyed.
Something in me twinged, and a foreign emotion twisted in my chest.
…Leila…fight back.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Leila
It hurt Eclipse.
It hurt Eclipse!
Even in my pained, pinned position, I saw the red of blood on the night mare’s coat as she cried out in pain.
Even as the creature slammed its foot into my lower back, sending pain wracking through my body, I barely registered it. I was too angry.
This monster—and whoever sent it—had harmed my night mare.
No.
I stretched, the muscles in my arm protesting as I reached for the small tree and landscaping bed artfully arranged on the edge of the street. The creature twisted its claws, slicing the skin of my lower back, but my fingers brushed the small rocks dumped around the tree trunk.
I grabbed a fistful and flung them behind me, pelting the monster.
It leaned back, putting its weight on its other foot, giving me the chance to slide out from under it.
It badly tore my shirt as it tried to stab its claws into my side, but I rolled and jumped to my feet.
Aware it was right behind me, I darted behind a public garbage can—one of those pebbled concrete ones.
The monster chased after me, following me right up to the garbage can. Not expecting the concrete’s solid heft, it slammed into it and practically flipped over the plastic top.
I jumped an empty bike rack and ran up the street, scooping up my lost prism that sat in the middle of the road. How am I going to defeat this thing? I didn’t bring my gun because of derby rules, and I don’t know much fast-casting offensive magic—just wards!
My prism was still activated, and I yanked more magic through it. I didn’t know what I was gathering it for—my thoughts were scattered, like the night mares that screamed and ran around me.
Comet and Nebula charged the monster together. But even with their jagged teeth, whatever damage they did disappeared as the spell-powered creature’s shadowy flesh regenerated.
Wait—this monster is obviously a spell. Otherwise I wouldn’t be feeling this weird magic, and it wouldn’t be able to regenerate like this. That means the easiest way to fight it is to destroy whatever magic is powering it, which should be held in a core somewhere.
The monster turned to me, and I automatically forged a ward, which glowed at my feet before erecting a barrier that briefly flickered with runes.
>
I studied it, trying to see if there was any part of it that looked more concentrated or different. Most likely the spell powering it was not in a limb—those would be easy to chop off.
Eclipse—even though she was hurt—charged it, and Twilight kicked out at it, his hooves passing straight through the monster’s disconcerting, ever-changing head.
It didn’t bother the monster—which was intent on trying to break through my barrier.
That probably means its core isn’t in its head. Which means it’s most likely in the chest. But how can I destroy it when I’ve only been practicing wards! Wait, unless…
I skidded to a stop and whirled around.
The creature was right behind me. It reached for me, and I ducked under its arms, barely avoiding its claws.
My mouth dried up as I shoved my hand into the monster’s shadowy torso and used the one magic I’d practiced endlessly for the past few weeks.
I made a ward.
Not around me or my night mares, but around the monster. Or—rather—in it.
When I’d poured all the magic I could muster into the spell, I released it, and the ward grew, expanding into a purple shield that vertically sliced through the monster’s body.
I held my breath, afraid to hope.
The creature stopped flailing, split by the barrier.
A moment passed, and its chest cavity glowed white hot before the light. I heard a snapping noise, and whatever spell it was that forged the creature crumbled. Its body and limbs turned into thick clouds of black smoke.
A flower dropped from the haze before the smoke dissolved into the air.
Blood oozed down my back as I stooped over and snatched up the spotless, white flower. It was a chrysanthemum.
Lady Chrysanthe.
