A Dance with Darkness

by Jenna Wolfhart

  “Got her,” the fae male soldier said.

  But Redmond still held his blade against Bree.

  “Happy now?” I said to him. “You’ve got me. Let go of Bree.”

  I was beginning to have a bad feeling about this. My enemy was a master of deception with a heart filled with cruel, cold rage. I’d made the ultimate sacrifice, but as those glittering eyes pierced my soul, I feared that none of us would survive.

  His lips twisted into a strange smile. “Is that really the best idea? I mean, she is a Redcap. Didn’t she kill your guards?”

  My heart began to beat wildly in my chest. “You said you would let her go if I came with you. An exchange. Me for her. That’s what you said.”

  He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Perhaps that was a mistake. I can’t very well release a monster, especially not onto our changelings. What would our Queen think if she knew I’d allowed them to get attacked?”

  I narrowed my eyes, and my breath began to expel through my nose in rapid bursts. My entire body shook, and I could barely think straight as the realization of what I’d done washed over me. Redmond had never intended on letting Bree go. He was going to kill her, right in front of me. And then he’d probably move on to me next.

  “Let. Her. Go!” I squirmed against the fae soldier’s tight grip. He was strong, but a strange kind of power had begun to sing in my veins, one that made me feel almost invincible. I just needed a little more time...

  Another set of footsteps crunched through the dead leaves. A fae soldier came up behind us, and he had—

  He had Finn. An unconscious Finn who had a bruise the size of the sun on his face.

  “Found this one lurking around back there. What do you want me to do with him?”

  “We’ll kill him, too,” Redmond said. “It will be a good training lesson for the changelings here. Don’t rebel against the Courts, or else there will be serious consequences.”

  I’d had enough. I couldn’t stand here trapped while Redmond threatened everyone I knew and loved. The power boiled inside of me, and a furious fire consumed my soul.

  “Let them go!” My voice was so loud that the ground beneath our feet began to shake.

  And with those words, the strange, wild power of my soul spilled out into the forest clearing. A harsh and bitter wind whipped around me, and the intensity of my command made me fall to my knees. A sharp, splitting pain ripped my skull in two, but I gritted my teeth against the force of it.

  I wanted to free Bree. I wanted to free Finn. And I wanted these Autumn fae to go down.

  Everything exploded into chaos. Bree vanished into thin air, followed quickly by Finn. The horses began to buck and kick, slamming their massive hooves into each of the fae in turn. Redmond screamed and stumbled back. His horse knocked him sideways where he fell to a heap on the ground.

  I had to glance away when their hooves began to pound into his body. The sound of crunching bones would haunt me to my grave.

  Squeezing my eyes as tight as I could, I dug my hands into the dirt and clung on to the earth. The wind that whipped around me had become a tornado of leaves and magic and pain, and I could no longer hear anything but the heavy roar of my blood.

  Suddenly, the wind died. The leaves fluttered to the forest floor, and my heavy breathing was the only sound in the world.

  I looked up. Bree knelt before me, her eyes shining beneath a face caked in dirt. She took my shaking hand in hers and squeezed.

  “You saved me, Norah.” Her voice caught, and the tears in her eyes began to spill down her cheeks. “You saved us all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I felt as though I’d been run over by a bullet train. Soon after Bree came to me in the forest, I’d passed out. When I woke up, I was in the infirmary again, back at the Academy. The early morning light streamed in through the open window, and my four fae instructors were dotted around the room, each and every one of them fast asleep.

  I cleared my throat.

  Immediately, Liam was on his feet, glaring at every shadow in the room as if he were in search of an enemy to fight. I let out a laugh and coughed, rubbing at my throat. Even my vocal chords felt as if they’d been tossed through a blender.

  “Take it easy.” Kael pulled his chair closer to my bed and took my hand in his. “You’re going to have some pain for a little while.”

  “Where’s Bree?” I asked. “Is she okay? Did you get her away from the Autumn woods?”

  “Bree is fine,” he said gently. “We brought her back to the Academy and administered the Winter Starlight. She’s recovering well. We think she’ll pull through this thing.”

  Relief whooshed out of me, so intense that it felt as though my entire body was spent.

  “I don’t even understand what happened.” I glanced up at Rourke, who hovered behind Kael. “I’m sorry I shifted away from you like that.”

  His jaw clenched. “You scared the shit out of me. Try not to do it again.”

  “But what exactly was it, anyway?” I turned my gaze toward Finn. He was perching on the edge of the bed, perfectly balanced. “Where did you disappear to? I didn’t know you could shift.”

  “I can’t shift,” he said with a light laugh. “You did that, Norah. First, you shifted Bree out of there, and then you did it for me. We ended up right next to Rourke.”

  My mouth dropped open. “But...”

  “And then,” Rourke added, “you turned the horses on their masters. They, ah...well, no need to go into the gory details. Let’s just say that Redmond will no longer be a problem for us.”

  My face blanched. “Honestly, I don’t think that was me. I didn’t want to make them stampede him to death. Besides, I barely even know how to ride a horse properly, let alone control them.”

  “And that’s why you have the hangover from hell, darling,” Liam said with a grin. “You used some seriously powerful gifts that you’ve never practiced before. It’s going to leave you feeling like shit until you master them. Just...how about you not volunteer yourself to get killed next time you want to try them out?”

  My head still felt muddled, like I was missing an important piece of the puzzle. “So, shifting belongs to Autumn fae and Winter fae. And the whole horse control thing is also Autumn. Does that mean I’ve been Autumn all this time?”

  Kael and Rourke exchanged that weighted glance again, the one that said far more than words.

  “Come on, guys. You clearly have a theory. I think it’s only fair to tell me after I saved all your asses.”

  Liam barked out a laugh. “That’s my girl.”

  “Don’t encourage her,” Rourke said before nodding at my Winter fae. “Want to take this one, Kael?”

  Kael sighed and rubbed his chin. “We have reason to believe that you have not one but four seasonal gifts. You seem to possess traits and abilities of the Summer fae, but the same can be said for Winter, Spring, and Autumn now as well.”

  I blinked. “Is that a thing?”

  “Not usually,” Finn said in a singsong voice. “It’s very rare. In fact, Marin was the last fae to possess the power of all four, which is why I believe someone snuck that necklace to you. It was meant to protect you from harm. Hide the powers, save the girl.”

  “Some fae would find it imperative to take you out of the equation,” Kael said in a growl. “In fact, it seems as though Redmond had a pretty good idea of what you are somehow. I’m not sure what he intended to do with you, but it wouldn’t have been good.”

  Chills swept down my spine. “So, you’re saying that I, the girl who couldn’t shoot a bow and arrow on her first day, can actually wield powers of all four seasons? You guys are playing a trick on me, aren’t you? You thought it would be funny to mess with me after I completely ignored everything you told me to do during the battle.”

  Finn chuckled. “Only a Spring would think we were playing a joke on you.”

  “And only a Summer would get so boiling mad that she made a tornado out of thin air,” Liam add
ed.

  “Only an Autumn would be devious enough to trick Redmond into thinking you were going to go along with him.” When I opened my mouth to argue, Rourke smiled. “Don’t try to play it otherwise. You were never going to go down without a fight.”

  “And only a Winter,” Kael said, chiming in last, “would find enough strength in the darkness to shift two others out of that forest clearing without even touching them with her hands.”

  “You’re not just one type of fae, Norah,” Liam said. “You’re all of them. And the four of us pledge to stand by your side no matter what.”

  “Because the storms have only begun to come,” Rourke said. “We may have won this fight with the Autumn Court, but there will be many more to come.”

  Thank you for reading A Dance with Darkness, the first book in the Otherworld Academy trilogy! A Song of Shadows will release in May 2018. Want to be notified on release day? You can join my reader newsletter by clicking here.

  About the Author

  Jenna Wolfhart is a Buffy-wannabe who lives vicariously through the kick-ass heroines in urban fantasy. After completing a PhD in Librarianship, she became a full-time author and now spends her days typing the fantastical stories in her head. When she's not writing, she loves to stargaze, binge Netflix, and drink copious amounts of coffee.

  Born and raised in America, Jenna now lives in England with her husband, her dog, and her four rats.

  www.jennawolfhart.com

  jenna@jennawolfhart.com