by Lily Archer
His brows furrow. “I don’t know. That’s something that we’ll have to suss out once we reach the safety of the winter realm.” He turns his head quickly, peering into the trees at our backs.
Lenetia tenses. “What? What is it?”
Gareth remains impossibly still, everything about him attuned to whatever he sensed in the woods. A tremor rolls up my spine, but I don’t move, barely breathe.
After a long moment, he relaxes and turns back to the fire.
“What’s out there?”
He rolls his shoulders. “Maybe nothing.”
“But maybe something?” Lenetia spits on the ground.
“I don’t know. For a moment, I thought I felt …” He glances at me. “Doesn’t matter. We’re riding out as soon as we break camp, and then we’re keeping a quick pace.”
Leander strides up and has a quick talk with Gareth before sitting next to me.
“Food good?” He takes the proffered bowl from Beth.
“Yes.” I’m still stewing over the changelings and apprehensive of whatever Gareth may have seen in the trees.
Leander must notice because he puts his arm around me gently. “Problem?”
“I could explain it, but you wouldn’t understand me.” I rub my eyes.
“Try me.” He squeezes me gently.
“I’m going to clean up.” Beth grabs the stew pot and heads toward the nearby stream.
“‘Try me?’” I eye him. “You learn English overnight?”
“I knew the changeling language long ago, but I—” he screws his lips up on one side “—become rusted?”
“Rusty.” I nod.
“Yes. I’m trying to renumber.”
God, he’s somehow cute when he says it wrong. This huge, brute of a man—male?—with the dark eyes and warrior’s body is making me want to giggle. “Remember. You meant ‘remember.’”
“Remember.” He smiles. “My dreams help.”
I don’t know what to make of that statement. Dreams help? I’d ask for an explanation, but everything in me almost buzzes, as if there’s some slight electrical current between us whenever we get too close. I try not to look at his mouth, the sinful curve of his lips, but I do, and I swear my heart trips and falls all over itself. To cover, I launch into an anti-exchange tirade that sums up my conversation with Gareth and my many objections to the practice.
He listens intently, then goes tense and still when I recount how I was exchanged.
“Two days here only?” His brow furrows.
“Right.” I shrug. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t belong here. I’m in college. I have classes. And exams. And bills to pay. And Friends reruns to watch. And a roommate to strangle.”
“Roommate.” He scrunches his dark brows together and says something in fae that sounds like a curse “—fae?”
“No.” Then I shake my head. “Well, then again, I really don’t know. Maybe? She could have been a—”
A low, sharp whistle cuts through the air.
Leander is on his feet in an instant, pulling me up with him. Beth is rushing toward us from the stream, the pot left behind, as Leander throws me over his shoulder and runs to the horses.
14
Leander
Gareth’s warning whistle sets my teeth on edge, and I grab my mate and hurry to the horses. Once Taylor is secure, I climb up behind her and guide Kyrin deeper into the wood. The forest is still. Too still. No squirrels play amongst the leaves, and the fairies have all taken shelter in hollowed-out trees or drooping flower petals.
“What is it?” Taylor asks.
The answer to her question is ‘danger,’ but I don’t want to say it. Instead, I grip her tightly and urge Kyrin to move faster through the trees.
“Curse the summer realm.” Gareth and the changeling ride up behind us. “There’s a witch trailing us.”
“What sort?”
“From the scent of brimstone I caught, she’s an Obsidian.”
I clench my eyes shut for only a moment. “Can we outrun her?”
“We can try.” He sighs.
The trees whisper around us, warning vibrating through the leaves and into the muggy air. A creature of pure evil, an Obsidian witch would be a foe that even Gareth and I might not be able to defeat. Who would have sent her after us?
“No nobles in the summer realm could command one such as this.” Gareth seems to read my mind.
“Either she has a score of her own to settle or she was sent by the king beyond the mountain.” I grit my teeth as clouds pass across the sun, turning the woods sullen and gloomy.
“What is going on?” Taylor turns and meets my gaze, her peculiar blue eyes open wide.
“We’re about to get flayed to the bone while still alive, and then have our marrow sucked out.” The other changeling shivers.
“What?” Taylor shakes her head.
“An Obsidian witch hunts us.” Lenetia hugs herself. “We’re dead.”
“Leander?” Taylor says my name, uncertainty in her tone, and I know that I will die to save her should it come to that.
“She will not harm you.” I stroke her soft hair, then pull her even tighter against me. “Kyrin, run as if the master of the twelve dark Spires chases us.”
The beast snorts, his body going taut as a faint cackle floats through the darkening trees. With a slight rearing back, he takes off over the moss-strewn ground and plunges ahead. I hold on to Taylor and the saddle, pushing her forward so that she is bent over his mane and safe from the stray branches.
Even Kyrin’s thundering hooves can’t cover the sound of her heartbeat. A wild thing, it rampages against her ribs as we tear through the greenery and flowers.
I throw up a barrier behind us, one that camouflages our sight and sound, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that an Obsidian wouldn’t be able to see through it. The last one I fought almost took me with her to the Spires, but I killed her with the help of Gareth and the fighters that would become my honor guard in the northern realm. Even now, members of the Phalanx wait for us at the border, but if the Obsidian catches us, we may never make it. The thought of what the creature would do to Taylor turns my insides into an inferno of aggression, but stopping to fight now would only put her in more danger.
So, we run. We run until Kyrin begins to flag, his jumps barely clearing fallen trees and low-lying brush, his breathing coming in too-fast bursts.
“Slower, my friend.” I lean back, pulling Taylor to an upright position as Kyrin eases off somewhat.
The dreariness of the witch’s presence is gone, the woods back to their dreamlike perfection. But the hair on the back of my neck still stands on end. She’s on our trail, and an Obsidian will not stop until she draws blood.
“We can’t delay.” Gareth’s horse Sabre is huffing out hard breaths, his fatigue matching Kyrin’s.
“We can’t keep running them like this either.” I pat Kyrin.
“I know, and this waif is already exhausted just from hanging on.” He scowls at the changeling, but I notice he grips her tightly to him.
“She needs a break.” Taylor reaches toward the changeling. “Beth, are you okay?”
“Fine,” she mumbles.
“We can’t stop now. Not with the witch at our backs.” Gareth shakes his head.
“We have to. Beth can’t take much more. She was far worse off in the dungeon than I was.” Taylor puts her small hand over mine. “Please? Can we just stop for a minute so I can check on her?”
“Of course.” I am powerless to deny her anything, especially when she shares her touch with me. She deserves safety and happiness as my queen, not danger from all corners.
Gareth frowns. “This is a bad idea.”
“I hear a stream up ahead. The horses need a drink and a little rest. I’ll keep my glamour up while we stop, and we’ll be moving again before the sun begins its descent.”
“I don’t like it.” He casts a glance behind us.
“I do
n’t like it, either, but we can’t let the horses get past the point of usefulness. And Taylor is right, your changeling is pale.”
“She’s not mine,” Gareth grumbles but relents with a sigh. “Just for a moment, then.” He pulls up next to the glistening stream and climbs down, then gently hoists Lenetia to the ground.
“Thank you.” Taylor squeezes my hand, and the bond between us snaps even tighter. My everything, my entire future is right in front of me.
The witch wants to sever that link, but she’ll have a hell of a fight on her hands before she can even come close. I’ve killed her kind once before. I can do it again.
15
Taylor
The bed roll isn’t as warm without Leander in it. But he and Gareth prowl the edges of the camp, their weapons strapped tightly to their bodies.
“Isn’t this fun?” Beth rolls onto her back and throws one arm over her eyes. “I doubt we’ll survive the night.”
We’d stopped only briefly at midday so I could tend to Beth and the horses could have a rest. Then we rode again, so far and so fast that I wondered if my ass would ever stop aching. The answer, I find, is no. No, it won’t.
I roll over and face Beth. “What’s an Obsidian witch? When I asked Leander, he pretended he didn’t know the English words to tell me.”
Though her color is better, and I managed to give her an extra helping of some strange vegetables, she still sounds weak. Whatever her master did to her isn’t something that will fade quickly. She needs rest.
Her teeth chatter. “Obsidian. Ugh.”
“That bad?”
“Kind of the worst creature in all of Arin.” She bobbles her head a little back and forth. “Well, no, the worst of all is a necromancer. But an Obsidian witch is up there.”
“Why?”
She sighs. “Imagine a creature spawned from the Spires that—”
“What are the Spires?”
“You really are a brand new exchange.”
I shrug, though she can’t see it.
“The Spires are like, like … hmmm. On earth there was talk of a place called hell, right?”
“Yeah.”
“They are hell, but a real place with real evil and sometimes the evil manages to crawl out of it and torment the rest of us. That’s where the Obsidian witches come from.”
“Demons?”
“Sure.” She splays her fingers and counts off on one hand. “Demon, succubus, child-eating, spell-casting, death-bringing harlots from the Spires. They’re more powerful than most fae can ever dream of. Can even bend reality, so they say. And now one of them hunts us. Perfect.”
Though the air is still warm, I pull a fur over my shoulders. “But Gareth and Leander can defeat it, right?”
She snorts. “I sure hope so. Otherwise, you’re going to learn pretty quickly all the things the Obsidian is capable of. And I have no doubt you’ll be a fine meal for her.”
“You said they eat children.”
She turns and peers at me with one eye. “They’ll eat whatever flesh they can find. Yours and mine included.”
“Jesus.” I pull the fur tighter and try to find Leander through the trees. I can’t see him. Panic rises in my gut, but I tamp it down and scoot a little closer to Beth. She needs a bath even worse than I do, but having her near is still a comfort.
“If she attacks, maybe these two can slow her down while we escape.”
Leave Leander behind? I rub my chest, something like heartburn setting in there.
She laughs, though it’s more of a gallows sound. “Calm down. I’m certain he would never leave you unless absolutely necessary.”
“It’s not that.”
“It is. You’re his mate. Somewhere inside you, you can feel the pull.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve been around enough mated fae.”
“But I’m not fae.”
“No. But you are mated. I can’t imagine it’s much different for a human. Besides, I see the way you look at him.”
I feel my cheeks heating, but I can’t deny what she’s said. Leander is still a mystery to me, but I’ve found a safety in his arms that seemed impossible when I first woke in the dungeon.
“Don’t worry about it.” She settles in with a large yawn. “We’ll probably all be dead soon anyway.”
“Thanks.” I turn to say more, but she’s already snoring. Apparently, mortal danger doesn’t faze her.
I’m not so lucky. I toss and turn, each sound in the trees drawing my attention as my imagination runs wild. By the time I finally close my eyes, the fire is burning low and it’s been hours since I’ve seen Gareth or Leander.
I fall into an uneasy sleep, my mind refusing to shut down entirely. But when it does, I try to shake myself awake. It doesn’t work. In my dream, I’m rising from my bedroll and walking into the dark woods. I know I shouldn’t leave the safety of the camp, but I can’t stop.
My footfalls are silent, and I can’t scream, can’t make a sound. It’s as if I’m being pulled forward by a rope around my middle while an ice-cold hand clamps down on my mouth. I struggle against its hold and try to shake my head, to do anything that would wake me.
Onward I walk, stumbling over underbrush, tree branches scratching at my face.
“Leander!” I call his name over and over in my mind, but he doesn’t appear. There are only trees and the growing darkness that seems to muffle every bit of faint starlight through the leaves.
A shadow flits through the trees and comes ever closer. It says something in fae, but I can’t understand. A hot, streaking pain cuts through my mind, so much pain that tears well in my eyes.
“I said, ‘He can’t hear you, dearie.’” A low snort. “But I’ve fixed you so we can talk.”
“Let me go.” I … I just spoke fae. How did I speak fae, in my mind?
“Because I taught you. Can’t have a conversation unless you speak the same language, eh? And my changeling hasn’t been worth two drops of fairy blood in ages.”
The fae words come easily to my mind, but I’m too preoccupied with the situation to linger on my newfound language. “Please just let me go.”
The shadow darts around me. “I would, but I’m hungry, you see.”
I enter a clearing, the darkness whirling like a midnight tornado in the center. “Leander!” I try again in vain.
“Shh now, changeling.” A form materializes from the darkness. A young woman, her skin crackled and black, as if she’s made of dark glass that someone shattered and reformed. Obsidian. Her movements are fluid, her black eyes focused on me as her feet barely touch the ground. Her hair and eyebrows are a shocking white, impossible against her black skin.
My stomach churns, and my bladder feels uncomfortably full and on the verge of release.
Her forked tongue darts out, and she smiles, her lips crackling against each other. “Delicious.” She sniffs the air hard, her sharp black teeth clacking as she exhales and comes nearer, so close I can feel her breath on my neck. “So tasty, fresh, and new.” When her tongue slithers across my cheek, I scream.
“I like the sound of your fear.” Her fingers dig into my sides, the tips like claws. “I will make a stew of you. Chew your marrow and pick my teeth with your bones. Taste like boar, you will. Rich and roasted and oh, how tasty you will be once you’ve rotted a while. Your bits under my nails, I’ll lick them out slowly, savoring.”
I scream again as she presses one claw to my face and draws blood.
Blood. My blood. This isn’t a dream. Ice trickles down my spine. This isn’t a dream.
Pulling back, she licks her finger. Her white eyebrows draw together, and her eyes flick back to my face. “Tasty, but … But not quite right.” She cocks her head to the side. “And what’s this?” She points to the necklace I still wear.
“I don’t know. Let me go.”
She eases closer, the scent of fire and sulphur leaching from her into the air. “By the Spires, it can’t be. But it
is.” Her cackle shatters my mind, the notes harsh and unrelenting.
I press my hands to my ears but don’t dare close my eyes.
“Calm now, child. Calm.” She presses one cold finger under my chin and forces me to meet her bottomless gaze. “You were foretold.”
“I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Yes, you are.” She taps her finger to the side of her nose.
“If you let me go, I’ll leave this place and never return. I just want to get back home to—”
“You are home.” She reaches for my necklace but can’t seem to grasp it, as if there’s a barrier around it. “Home, home, home.” Her cackle breaks through again, and I think my ears might truly be bleeding. “Sit, young one.” The rope pulls me toward the murky tornado, which dissipates until only black flames in a cauldron remain. The unseen force makes me plop down on a log next to the fire as the witch peers into the iron pot.
“Are you going to kill me?” I speak past the knot in my throat.
She clicks her nails against her black teeth and gives me an appraising look. “Maybe.” Her predatory stare doesn’t ease.
I tell myself ‘maybe’ is better than ‘yes’ and continue, “Why are you following us?”
She spits into the cauldron, which sends a plume of black shooting high above us. “Compelled.” Gnashing her teeth, she focuses on the cauldron. “Compelled to find the king of the winter realm. Treated like a slave, summoned from my cave, away from my lovely pile of bones and rotting flesh, compelled.”
I push aside the visual of her crouching over putrefied remains. “By who? Who compelled you?”
“King beyond the mountain he calls himself.” She spits again. “Compelled. Like a dog. Like a slave. I am Obsidian. I do not break! Not for anyone. But this king beyond the mountain. His magic.” She shakes her head. “Pulled me from my cave, he did. Sent me to this horrid place. I must find the king of the winter realm.”
“Why?”
She holds her hands up, and her black claws elongate, the edges sharper than the finest razor. “To kill him. To take his handsome head to the king beyond the mountain. I can have the rest of him. I can keep all those other parts, let them rot until they are gloriously foul.” She smacks her hard lips. “He will taste even better then.”