I can’t see the figure, but I know the walk. That deadly prowl belongs to only one fae I know.
“Brannon.” I sheathe my sword as he appears through the waves of heat, Thorn perched on his shoulder. “I didn’t know you gave rides.”
He grins. “I shot him down, so I thought it was the least I could do.”
The eagle screeches angrily and makes a show of his bloody feathers.
“You shot him?” Valen hurries forward. “Where?”
“Just clipped his wing a bit. He’s fine.” Brannon shrugs the eagle off, his broad shoulders bare under the blazing sun, the black ink that snakes around him almost glowing in the light.
Valen takes Thorn and does a quick healing spell on the bloody feathers along his right wing.
“How did you find us?” I clasp Brannon’s forearm as Selene prances up.
“Hi, handsome,” she purrs.
He looks down at her. “Witch.”
She bats her black lashes. “I’m Selene. Let’s have sex.”
Ravella caws out a laugh that echoes across the sandy expanse, and Valen’s mouth drops open.
“Sorry.” Brannon runs a hand through his raven hair. “I’m saving myself for my mate.”
“What?” Selene stomps her foot on the sand. “I demand you fornicate with me forthwith, handsome one!”
The black ink that creeps up his neck pulses. “No.”
Selene crosses her arms and harrumphs, her claws clacking against her sides.
Thorn flashes back into his fae form and doubles over, laughter rolling out of him, which then has Ravella starting up again. Then Gray joins in.
“Saving yourself?” Thorn guffaws. “Are you serious?”
“And what of it?” Brannon’s hands fist, the darkness inside him threatening to emerge.
“Leave him be.” I point at Selene. “Both of you.”
She grumbles but drops back and resumes a one-sided conversation she’s had off and on with Kyrin.
“What did you see?” I yank Thorn upright, and the laughter dies off. “The mountain. Tell me.”
“A cave system at the top of that peak.” He points to the highest one, the same one Selene had described. “Lots of movement up there, but that’s only half of it. I found the missing lesser fae and changelings.”
“What? Are they all right?”
“They’re an army. I’ve been to the camps. Blended in under the cover of night.” Brannon spits. “They’ve joined up with the king beyond the mountain, believed his tales of taking over the realms and remaking them. Most of them are there voluntarily. Some were conscripted, but not many.”
“Why would they go?” Valen verges on flabbergasted.
“They want equality, freedom from the high fae.”
“And they think the king beyond the mountain will give them that?” Ravella shakes her head. “I don’t know who he is, but I can guarantee his purpose isn’t peace and equality, not when he’s been amassing a host of warriors.”
“They left my realm to join him.” It’s a kick to the gut, but one I should have expected. When I tried to enforce equality amongst high and lesser fae, the disdain from the nobles of High Mountain may have been what pushed them away. When they saw that no matter what their new king argued for, the old ways still prevailed. They lost faith in me. “How many?”
“Thousands.” Brannon sucks on his teeth. “Enough to take the summer realm with a surprise attack. They’ll have to march long and hard to Byrn Varyndr, but they’ll murder and burn as they go.”
My hopes fall even further, sinking low into the pit of my memories of fallen friends and never-ending bloodshed. Please Ancestors, not again.
“And the king beyond the mountain?” I force myself to continue, to keep going, to do what must be done to reclaim Taylor and defend the realms. “What of him?”
“He’s in the caves, I suspect.” Thorn points. “Lording over it all.”
“They say he has a weapon, a warrior who soars on black wings and who can kill with a whisper.”
“Have you seen this warrior?” I don’t want to think about Taylor in the clutches of a monster like that.
“No.” Brannon shakes his head. “On the night I crept through the camp, I heard the beat of wings and spotted something high in the clouds, but it vanished.”
“Anything else?” I trudge ahead, the sand falling away from my boots in little waves as I parse what information Brannon and Thorn have revealed.
“Leander.” Brannon’s voice is soft, eerily so.
I turn and meet his gaze.
“There’s one more thing I found out.”
“Yes?” A drowning weight settles on me before Brannon speaks, because some part of me already knows.
“The king beyond the mountain … It’s the old evil, the dark one.”
I freeze, winter rampaging through my heart, and turn my eyes to the mountain. “Shathinor.”
9
Taylor
The dead soldier flops on the ground like a fish, his arms splaying at odd angles.
“More.” Shathinor stares as I pull magic from inside me and force it out and into the corpse.
A sweat breaks across my brow, and I concentrate on reanimating his heart, forcing it to beat with black blood. It oozes from the wound in his neck where Cenet’s fangs ripped the soldier’s life away. He flips to his back, and his white eyes open too wide, his mouth rounded in a scream as his body begins to function again.
“That’s it.” Shathinor smiles, his hollow cheeks stretching wide. “You have it.”
I cut off my magic and rub my temples as the creature rises to its feet, its mind empty and ready for orders. “I wish you would stop doing that. This is the thirteenth one you’ve brought back. We need to get out of here. Find Leander.” I squelch the annoying voice that sounds far too much like my own.
“Cenet.” Shathinor glowers. “Next time, make your kill without injuring too much. She needs practice, but not the sort that drains her.”
Cenet sneers. “Too hard for your precious Taylor?”
Shathinor strikes him so hard that Cenet’s head whips around and the nearby soldiers murmur uneasily. “Do not test me, Son. Lest I have her make an example of you.”
Cenet stalks away as Shathinor resurrects another soldier.
I swipe the back of my hand across my forehead and throw my shoulders back, the magic already replenished and ready for more. I’m always ready for more. All these days and nights spent training have honed my focus, and I know what I’m here for. I will fulfill the prophecy and bring Arin to heel.
“Why?” The irritating voice is back.
“Because that is my destiny,” I think back at it.
“It doesn’t have to be. We don’t have to do these things. Just because Shathinor is our father, it doesn’t mean we have to be like him.”
“What if I want to be like him? Only stronger.”
“No one wants to be like him. Hate-filled and power hungry. It’s not who we are.”
“I say who we are.” I can feel her trying to wrestle her way free, to be on top again like she’s been since we were born, since our mother cursed us with that stone.