by May Dawson
I was almost afraid to leave the room, afraid that he would strangle her when we left. But there was some power dynamic here that I didn’t fully understand despite all our reading, the royalty and the religious order locked together.
“Let me give them my blessing for their journey,” she said.
Turic made an impatient face, but strode out of the room. He slammed the door.
“Come here, wolf princess,” she said, gesturing to me.
“How do we help?” I whispered as I went to her side.
She smiled. “Oh, look at you. No wonder you were chosen.”
“Chosen?” I stared at her.
“Strange things happen around you, don’t they?”
Murderous demon-possessed bears. Whispers from pendants. An insane mother with holes in her memory.
“Sometimes,” I said, pretending that wasn’t an understatement.
“The magic chose you. Daughter of a witch, daughter of a shifter. War-breaker.”
I couldn’t hide the disbelieving smile that slipped across my lips.
“You think you failed them,” she said. “Maddie, you were always meant to take the wolves’ magic away. That was your destiny.”
“It’s a pretty terrible destiny,” I said, “and an awful lot of people back home would like to kill me for it.”
“That was not the end of your destiny,” she said. “You’ll give your people far more than you ever took from them.”
I wanted to believe her. “Where does the prophecy come from? You say the same thing that the Greyworld wizards do—”
She laughed, a sharp, bitter laugh. “They get their prophecy from our world, Maddie. Only the Delphine have a connection with the spirits of the past and present. But our rulers sell our secrets to the wizards.”
I stared at her in shock as she touched a finger to her lips. “No one is supposed to know, but you two are our heroes. Our champions.”
“And,” she added, a twinkle in her eye, “Not every prophecy we offer the wizards is true, either.”
“Oh,” I said in shock.
“Put your head down, child, and let me bless you like I told Turic I would. Don’t make a liar out of me.”
I bowed my head, despite my racing heart, and let her cup her palm on my head. She murmured words promising me strength and protection from the spirits. I could use all the help I could get.
Then she gestured Tyson forward. “You must stop running sooner or later, Tyson. You’re meant to be a hero—and that means you must accept the cost.”
I looked at him sharply.
“Being a hero doesn’t sound so bad,” he said lightly.
She gave him a knowing look. “You can’t escape your destiny any more than your mate can escape hers.”
“And what if those two destinies pull us apart?” He demanded.
Destiny never promised anyone a happily-ever-after. But I found myself frowning, wondering why he was so convinced our destinies might try to pull us in opposite directions.
“Have some faith in each other,” she chided him, although her glance at me encompassed us both. “That’s where you two have gone wrong all this time. You need faith.”
She murmured her words of blessing over him, too. We both hesitated, wondering what we were supposed to say.
“Well, shoo,” she said. “Go fight the good fight. Let an old woman drink her soup and nap.”
As we left, Tyson kept glancing at me as if there was something he wanted to say to me.
“What is it?” I whispered, glancing down the hall. There was no one else around, so I stopped him with my hand on his chest.
His heart seemed to race under my palm, and I snatched my hand away, sticking my hands into the pockets of my jeans and flashing him a smile to soften the movement. “What’s going on, Ty? Something’s bothering you.”
“Everything,” he told me. There was a rueful look written across his face. “I don’t want to keep secrets from you, Maddie.”
“Then don’t.”
He scoffed, crossing his arms. “It’s that simple, right? You don’t keep secrets.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year—scratch that, actually, I’ve learned quite a bit—it’s that yeah, keeping secrets from the people you love is generally a bad idea.”
“You sure keep quiet about what happened between you and ‘Echo’.” He made finger quotes. “But I know you’ve got a good reason.”
He was only so understanding because he had secrets of his own, and I knew that now. I almost rolled my eyes at the realization, but there was something painful and guarded in his eyes. I’d seen that expression too much lately, and I wished he didn’t feel like he had to carry his hurts alone. I swallowed the sharpness that had just formed in my throat, about to hurt him back.
I rested my hand on his forearm and squeezed the corded muscle. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
His face softened into relief.
“As soon as I can,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you everything.”
“Okay.” I said, my inner tension unspooling at that promise. “I trust you, Ty. Just make sure those secrets don’t get anyone hurt.”
The only reason I kept secrets now was because I worried telling them would get someone hurt. What had happened between Echo and me was nothing to me now, but I knew the details would change how the rest of my men saw Silas.
But I doubted we could get through the Greyworld without them realizing just how complicated Silas truly was.
He nodded and leaned in as if he intended to kiss me, but then Turic appeared at the end of the hall.
“Ready?” Turic asked impatiently. “I’ll take you as far as the Hooksbane fields, then I’ve got to move on. We should be able to get there by tomorrow mid-day if we make good time.”
If we were able to shake him by midday tomorrow, then everything might be fine. I’d rather we got Chase and half the team home sooner—I knew he wouldn’t rest easy while it was Clearborn and his shifters who were looking after Blake and Skyla—but we should be home by tomorrow night, if all went according to plan…for the first time since we stepped into the damned Fae world.
But first… I had to get a message to Raura.
When we returned to our room, our packs once again lined the wall in the hallway. It was strange to think we were going to leave this hallway that had been the scene of so much drama recently and never come back to it—or any other part of the Fae world.
Out in the courtyard, I saw Raura and I ran over to hug her. A surprised smile broke over her lips, and then my mouth brushed her hair as I squeezed her tight to whisper, “We need to talk.”
She nodded, then glanced at Turic and his knights, saddling up behind us. “Father, I can’t believe you’re being so cruel as to take my new best friend away.”
He grunted.
“He thinks I’m silly and ridiculous,” she confided, tucking her arm through mine and pulling me away from the crowd. “Arlen thinks the same. Even serving as a knight can’t convince them I’m serious.”
Arlen gave her a hard look, saddling his own horse. “Perhaps if you didn’t flounce in here expecting special treatment.”
“All I expected was that you’d be nice to me, and I certainly had that hope dashed, you jackass,” she said lightly.
“Raura,” Turic said, his voice warning, and she flashed him a mischievous, unapologetic look over her shoulder as she towed me across the rough dirt of the training yard. She pulled me from the training yard through an archway into the elaborate garden in the courtyard, filled with marble statues, bubbling fountains, and a riot of sweet-smelling flowers that ran wild over the ground and dripped from every arch and statue.
She glanced around quickly, then said, “We should be safe here.”
Quickly, I told her what Turic had threatened the Delphine with. The smile dropped from her lips, something hard coming into her eyes, and then something sad, too.
“Just go about your busin
ess as if you don’t care,” she said, squeezing my arm, and I thought Rafe would appreciate that suggestion. “I’m going to protect the orphans. I’ll take care of it.”
“Be careful.”
“You too,” she said, smiling again, a change coming over her face as if the silly, easygoing girl she pretended to be was a mask. “I’m not sure what you’re up to, but I hope it goes well for you.”
God, I hated the thought that we were stealing from these people—and that we weren’t going to help them if it conflicted with our mission.
I heard an impatient shout of my name from the courtyard and the two of us exchanged eye rolls as we ambled back through the garden toward the horses.
“Your world’s a very interesting place,” I said.
“It’s a disaster,” she answered.
“Mine too. But it doesn’t mean I love it any less.”
“That’s us,” she said. “We’re the princesses of chaotic kingdoms.”
“We’re the heroines of our own stories?”
“Well, we’ll do our best.”
She unwound her arm from mine as we reached the arches. Rafe gestured at me impatiently, still holding the reins of my horse. My small hiking pack was loaded on the horse’s hindquarters, right behind the saddle.
I didn’t know how to ride, but apparently we were learning by immersion now.
For a moment, I was focused just on the pressure of getting up on the horse without embarrassing myself, with all these Fae looking on.
Then as we began to ride out, I twisted to look over my shoulder for Raura, but she was gone.
Chapter Forty-One
“Maybe we should add horseback riding to the academy curriculum,” I said to Lex, shifting on my horse, not that it helped. Everything hurt, and my thighs felt as if they were being rubbed raw against the saddle, even though my jeans. “Because I feel woefully underprepared at the moment.”
He looked as happy as I did, and he dug his toes into the stirrups, rising slightly from the saddle. “Yeah, I have the opposite perspective, if I could never see a horse again, that would be fantastic.”
Rafe, on the other hand, seemed to be riding quite comfortably, reins held lazily in one hand, mimicking our Fae companions.
“Of course he grew up with a pony,” Lex muttered, then the two of us traded a good-humored look.
We rode along a road where the dust raised by the horses’ hooves was white and shimmering as we passed under endless tangled green branches, then emerged into sunshine.
“Are all the courts this green?” I asked Silas. “Or is it just because we’re in the spring court?”
“Every court has the usual seasons,” Silas said, “but the courts do tend to follow the magic of their rulers, too.”
“Fae adore a theme,” Penn said from just in front of us, and Rafe turned back to hush him, just before he rode ahead.
We were entering a craggy pass, the line of riders thinning out to a single track to pass through, and tension tightened my stomach. It felt claustrophobic, with the stone forming high walls that blocked out the sun’s direct rays.
There was a frantic whistle from up ahead, then desperate shouts.
Ahead of us, Rafe shouted, “It’s a trap! Go back, go back!”
I hauled on the reins, trying to get my horse to turn around in the narrow space without hurting her. She jerked her head, yanking away from me, and slammed her side into the stone wall. The movement slammed my leg into the stone, lancing it against the rough rock, her weight trapping my leg out there. I let out a curdled scream, then dropped the reins to clutch desperately to the horn at the front of the saddle as pain seared through my leg.
My head spun with the pain. My vision went black around the edges and I fought to hang onto consciousness—and the damned horse.
I clung to the saddle despite the wave of agony as my horse raced back the way we’d come. She moved too fast for me to get control, clipping other horses wildly. Then we rocketed out of the passage.
Behind me, there came a shout from one of the Fae. “Watch for arrows! Shields up!”
We plunged out of the pass and into the lush greenery of the forest. My horse seemed frantic, and as she picked up speed, I yanked my feet out of the stirrups and threw myself to one side. I slammed into the ground and rolled until my body slammed into a tree. All the breath was knocked out of me, and I let out a small muffled sound, then couldn’t even draw another breath.
I lay there on my back, trying to remember how to breathe, staring into the tree canopy above. I needed to get up and get moving before some Fae beastie thought I was an easy meal. But my ribs, my ass, my back all ached badly, and my leg hurt with a deep, searing pain that made me afraid to look.
Where the hell was everyone else?
I sat up, hissing at the agony that lanced from my leg all the way up through my hip. I glanced at the damned cuff on my wrist; if it weren’t for the magic, I could’ve healed myself.
Just as I thought that, the cuff fell off my wrist into the greenery. Maybe the Fae needed all-hands on deck and had unleashed us.
Or maybe they didn’t. Just in case, I picked up the damn thing and stuck it in my pocket.
The damage was bad, My jeans had been torn away along the outside of my thigh, along with half my flesh. I glimpsed white bone glimmering through the flesh and pressed my lips together hard, trying to hold back the sudden rise of bile in my throat.
I ran my hands over the wound, my fingers glowing golden as I gritted my teeth, starting to heal the flesh together. It felt as if my magic had been dammed up and was flowing stronger than ever now, because new, healing pain seared into the gash.
A growling sound drew my attention, my head rising quickly, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. The Fae still held our swords.
Goblin. I recognized the thing that was coming toward me from our studies, even though it looked far scarier close up. The goblin was not quite my height, but heavily muscled, with a mouth so full of enormous, twisted teeth it couldn’t close its lips.
But even if I hadn’t known what it was, those sharp teeth and malevolent glint in its eye would have told me it wasn’t exactly friendly.
I hurried to heal myself. The muscle knit together under my trembling fingers. But my skin was still open, the wound leaking blood.
The goblin reached for me, but I threw myself to one side.
I took off running—still limping—leading the goblin on a chase back toward the pass. I needed a friend with a sword. Or I needed to use my magic, but I would normally be about out of juice after healing myself. My body was shaky, and I almost stumbled and went down. I could feel the thing right behind me, though.
Goblins. Goblins. What do I know about fighting a goblin?
Because ahead of me, my men and the Fae were all engaged in a furious battle with the goblins.
But goblins didn’t use bows and arrows, and someone was shooting arrows at us. So there was something else going on. Maybe someone was controlling the goblins.
Goblins are homebodies; they don’t like leaving their nests. So that meant their nest was nearby, and maybe… maybe the root of whatever magic was being used to control the goblins was there too.
I just had to get rid of this one that was right on my tail.
Its claws glanced over my back, tearing open my shirt. Air danced over my skin.
I didn’t have a Fae’s grace, but I was a tomboy growing up, and I jumped and caught the bottom branch of one of those trees. I scrambled up into the spreading green branches, my palms scraping over the rough bark in my haste. The goblin looked too big and heavy to follow me.
Hopefully I was right. Because if I wasn’t right, I was likely to be dead.
The goblin slammed into the trunk, over and over again, growling and grunting. Drool dripped in a rivulet from the corner of its mouth. A low goblin; just like there were many kinds of Fae, there were many kinds of goblins, and this wasn’t one I can reason with.
But a
t least I was safe in the nook of two branches now, bracing my back against one to catalog my wounds and regroup before I joined the fray. I needed to help my friends. I’d skinned my palms in that desperate climb, and there was blood under my fingernails, as I stretched my hands out toward the wound on my leg, closing the skin.
New skin, fresh and pink and tender, had just healed over the raw flesh when the tree branch shook faintly.
A big Fae cat crept through the branches toward me. I kept my hands steady on my magic, pretending I didn’t see her.
Then when she leapt, I leaned back and gathered my legs into my chest.
Just as she reached me, I kicked out with all my might. My heels slammed into her chest, and she let out a roar as she fell.
Right on top of my goblin.
The two of them immediately began to fight with teeth and claws. I looked back toward the fight, aching to be there with my friends, knowing that I’m not much use right now with my magic depleted and no sword.
Maybe what they needed was someone to think, not someone who fought.
The goblin raced off, pursued by the cat.
Would he run to his goblin nest?
I dropped from the trees. A sure-footed Fae would race along through the canopy, but I’m not that graceful anymore.
I followed the snarling duo at a distance. As I tried to gather my magic, I was surprised when it sparked at my fingers, despite how much of my energy I’ve spent. I couldn’t risk blacking out here like I have when I used too much magic in my past, but this magic felt good, easy, natural.
Maybe it was different in the Fae world.
No wonder they didn’t want us here, when they were afraid we’d ruin their magic and make this world like our own.
The cat finally backed off from the goblin with a hiss, just as the goblin disappeared into a den. He was hurt, leaving a smear of blood behind him, and the cat prowled back and forth, tail whipping in irritation.
I froze, afraid she’d scent me, but she apparently had enough of harder targets than she expected today. She leapt up a tree branch and disappeared into the canopy again, which sent a creeping feeling down my spine, as if she might land on my head.
