Queen of the Fae

by Linsey Hall

  “No.”

  Shit.

  It could definitely be directions, but none of us could possibly read ancient Greek. I touched the carvings in the stone, wishing I could understand what they said.

  As I ran my hand over the deep incision that marked a word at the edge of the stone, understanding flashed in my mind.

  I gasped and jerked my hand away.

  “What is it?” Tarron demanded.

  “That word said danger.”

  “You can read it?” Aeri asked. “With your Dragon Blood?”

  While it was possible that we could maybe magic ourselves into speaking another language, it wasn’t likely that we could do a good enough job to interpret complicated passages. Mind and knowledge magics were harder.

  “No. I think Hestia, one of the goddesses who guards this place, gave me the ability to read ancient Greek.” I could still remember the warm magic that had filled my mind when she’d touched my arm.

  “Well, give it a go,” Aeri said impatiently.

  I drew in a deep breath of too-warm air and touched the words, starting with the ones at the top. Understanding flowed into my mind, my brain trying to keep up with the surge of information.

  It was freaking weird.

  “Well?” Aeri prodded.

  “Hold your horses.” I got to the end of the inscription, then frowned. I looked up at the path. “It says that the one that glows with light is the proper path.”

  “None of them glow,” Tarron said.

  “Is there another interpretation for light?” Aeri asked.

  “I don’t think so.” I ran my fingertips over the inscription again, but nothing new came to me.

  Damn. That was a bit of a mystery.

  I stood and walked toward the paths, inspecting them. Each one looked equivalently dark.

  Until I reached the last one.

  Glittering gold fireflies flew in the bushes in the distance, about fifty yards up. I hadn’t seen them before. Perhaps they’d come out with the sun setting?

  I looked back at Tarron and Aeri. “Come check this out.”

  They walked over.

  A smile tugged up at the corner of his lips when he spotted the fireflies. “That must be it.”

  Aeri ran back to the other trailheads and peered up each one for a few seconds. She returned. “Yep. Only one with fireflies. I say we do it.”

  I nodded, then started up the path. I took the lead, moving at a swift jog that felt like hell but was the only option. Sweat dripped, sticky and awful, and I winced at the burn in my lungs.

  The trees thinned and more boulders took their place the higher we got. The breeze was a bit stronger up there, thank fates, but it was still hot as hell with the flame clouds overhead. I prayed they wouldn’t suddenly drop.

  When we reached a passage through a section of towering boulders, I slowed. Tension prickled the air, along with the feeling of eyes on me.

  “Does it feel like we’re being watched?” Aeri asked.

  I nodded. “Sure does.”

  We slowed to a walk, our footsteps silent. More than anything, we needed to be able to sense when danger was coming. Between the lions and snakes, whatever was watching us had to be bad.

  “Alert to the right,” Tarron murmured. “I don’t see it, but I hear it.”

  Tension crawled along my skin as we walked.

  Tumbled boulders towered on either side of us, forcing us into a path from which there was no escape. We’d have to go forward or back, and lions could definitely come from those directions. Snakes, too. Even worse, the boulders around us formed huge shadowy nooks and crannies for a creature to hide.

  My skin tightened as I walked, eerie awareness making every movement huge and every sound as loud as a gun firing.

  When I heard the snuffling breath right by my ear, I stiffened, stopping dead in my tracks.

  I stood next to a huge boulder, shoulder high and massive.

  “Don’t move,” Tarron murmured.

  I didn’t need to look to know what was right by my head. I did anyway, carefully turning my eyes toward the snuffling warm breath.

  A lion’s huge nose was right by my ears, his golden eyes glued to mine. A majestic mane surrounded his big head, and he growled low in his throat.

  My heart felt like it shot right out of my chest as I watched him. His huge fangs had to be as long as my hand, and his breath smelled of dead bodies.

  Probably because he’d just eaten some and was hungry for more.

  Please kill me before you start to eat me.

  No. That was a bad attitude.

  The enormous claws that curled over the edge of the rock could disembowel me in a second.

  I winced.

  But he was truly magnificent. So terrifying that my mind buzzed, going blank. The only thought that drifted through was I’d rather face down Angry Ahabi.

  “I’ve got you,” Tarron said.

  I drew in a shallow breath. I could try to blast the lion with some magic, but that would suck. Endangered Species Killer was not something I wanted on my resume.

  Cold sweat dripped down my back as Tarron rustled behind me. His magic flared slightly on the air. I couldn’t see him, but I did catch sight of an enormous steak, bloody and red, as it appeared right in front of my face.

  Like a huge kitty treat that he’d conjured.

  The lion nipped it right out of Tarron’s fingers and chomped it down in just a few bites. Then he stared at me, growling.

  “Uh, Tarron?” Aeri said from the very back. “There’s another by your head.”

  The second growl came from behind, to my left. Then a third, a little farther back.

  “Now there’s one by me.” Her voice was no more than a squeak.

  Tarron moved carefully but quickly. I could barely hear him, but I saw two more steaks get set on the rock right in front of my lion.

  “Aeri’s lion,” I hissed.

  “I’m working on it,” he bit out.

  The lion gobbled up the steaks then kept staring at me.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “This isn’t working.” My skin turned icy with fear as the lion leaned closer. “This is so not working.”

  I stared straight ahead, frozen. He growled so close to my cheek that his whiskers touched me.

  Oh, shit.

  14

  The lion breathed on my face, hot air that reeked of the meat Tarron had fed it.

  Yeah, this was so wasn’t working.

  Cats liked big toys almost as much as they liked food. We could feed it until it was stuffed, and it might still want to bat me around like a giant fuzzy mouse or baby bird.

  I didn't want to be either.

  I drew in a shuddery breath as my mind raced. Cleverness was the only way out of this, and we needed to hurry the hell up.

  “Illusion, Aeri,” I murmured. “Antelopes.”

  I prayed she understood what I meant as I sliced my finger and let my Dragon Blood well. The magic flowed through me, and I called upon it, crafting the illusion of a fat, juicy antelope right in front of me. I had to do it from memory, so even I knew that the creature looked a bit weird. Like an unskilled painter had created it.

  I made the antelope run down the path away from us, its hoofs kicking up dust and its butt bouncing. The lion’s head swung toward it, and I could see interest glow in its eyes.

  The majestic beast leapt off the rock to my right and landed with a graceful thud on the ground in front of me. Hundreds of pounds of muscle rippled under gleaming golden fur. His flowing mane was shot through with red that gleamed under the light of the fiery clouds.

  In a heartbeat, he was tearing after the antelope, his strong strides eating up the ground.

  A second lion, the one that had been right behind me menacing Tarron, jumped clean over my head. Huge claws glinted in the light as they flew in front of my face, and the giant cat raced after the other one, in pursuit of the wonky antelope.

  I staggered backward, a year t
aken off my life. Tarron caught me, and I turned, spotting Aeri’s lion chasing after a third antelope down the back path. It headed down the mountain after a regal-hoofed creature that looked a hell of a lot more like a real antelope than mine had.

  “Holy fates, that was close.” Tarron gripped me to him with strong hands, pressing the back of my body full length against his front. I could feel the worry in his embrace. Concern for me.

  I leaned against him, absorbing a bit of his strength, as trembling overtook me.

  “Good idea, Mari,” Aeri said. “Though your antelope had a bit of an impressionist feel to it.”

  I laughed, a shaky sound. “Yeah, he could have gone in a museum.”

  “Can they catch those creatures?” Tarron asked.

  “Not really. Their claws will go straight through.”

  “That might piss them off.”

  “I’m hoping they won’t care. They just want to play.” I looked to my right, spotting the blood stain from the meat. “They’ve had a full meal anyway, so hopefully they won’t be too mad.”

  Tarron released me, and I stepped forward. “We need to move.”

  I nodded, dreading the run ahead but determined to get it over with. If those lions came back, pissed off and fangy, we’d be in trouble.

  With a resigned groan, I began to run. We plodded endlessly up the mountain. My breath heaved and my pants clung to my sweaty legs.

  Ew.

  I certainly wasn’t used to that. But an uphill run under flaming clouds would turn anyone into a swamp monster.

  The boulders around us cleared out as we moved higher, all the vegetation beginning to disappear. Finally, I could see the very top of the mountain. It blazed with orange fire, the flames coming right out of the rock. Even more fiery clouds coalesced at the top.

  “It’s like hell come to earth,” Aeri muttered breathlessly.

  My worst nightmares, really. If the Christian hell were real, I had a feeling they might have modeled this place after it. Or vice versa.

  We were close to the top—only a few hundred yards—when a dark energy began to fill the air. The earth in front of us moved, shifting and twisting.

  I stumbled to a halt, my breath going short. “Holy fates, what’s that?”

  “Snakes.” Tarron’s voice carried a dire tone.

  I squinted at the writhing mass. It was at least three huge black snakes, uncoiling upon themselves. They were as wide around as I was and at least twenty feet long. Not as big as the huge serpent I’d faced in the Fae trials, but that was probably a bad thing. These guys would be faster as a result. And their fangs were more than big enough to pierce me right through the chest.

  Firelight gleamed on their shimmering black skin, which wafted smoke in the same way that Wally’s fur did.

  “Hell snakes?” Aeri asked. She’d clearly seen the same thing I had.

  “It makes sense, I guess.” I eyed their three heads, which were turning to look at us.

  Fiery red eyes and brilliant white fangs gleamed. Their skin shimmered with magic beneath the smoke that rose up from their bodies.

  “What is a hell snake?” Tarron asked.

  “Black magic creature.” I searched my memory for all that I’d learned of them. “If we kill them, they will return to the underworld. The goddesses must have put them here.”

  “When Hestia gave you the knowledge of ancient Greek, did she happen to tell you how to defeat these?” Tarron asked.

  “No. I don’t think they work at the goddesses’ command. They were just plopped down here one day, and now they probably strike to kill.”

  “An effective guard.” Tarron drew his long gleaming sword from the ether. “We need to kill quicker.”

  I nodded, not feeling the least bit guilty. Being figments of dark magic, they wouldn’t even feel pain. We just had to injure their corporeal bodies enough to release the black magic and send them back where they’d come from.

  Carefully, I drew my bow and arrow from the ether. Aeri drew her mace and began swinging it over her head, working up a rhythm that would allow her to smash in skulls with efficiency and grace.

  The snakes hissed and reared up as we approached. I eyed the sky, wondering if I could strike from above.

  A fiery cloud wafted with the wind, moving so quickly that I winced.

  Yeah, that had to be avoided if at all possible.

  I moved right, trying to draw one of the snakes away from the others. We couldn’t have two snakes attacking one person—it’d be more than we could manage.

  Tarron shot a jet of flame at one snake, who reared up and caught it in his mouth. He seemed to grow bigger as a result, his body thickening and his eyes glowing a brighter red.

  Shit.

  “Definitely no to flame,” Tarron said.

  The Thorn Wolf appeared next to me, crouching low and growling up at the snake who loomed over me. I heard Wally hiss from the side, and realized that he’d shown up to watch Aeri’s back.

  “Wally says they hate water,” Aeri said.

  Thank fates for the hell cat.

  Tarron’s magic filled the air, and a jet of water shot from his palm. It nailed the snake closest to me right in the face, making the creature rear back and shoot fire, rage in every quivering muscle.

  With my snake distracted, I aimed my bow at the one who loomed over Tarron. Beyond them, Aeri and Wally were leading her snake on a fast chase. They had it under control, so I focused on Tarron’s snake. I fired two arrows, one after the other, so fast that my hands were a blur even to my own eyes. Each arrow struck the snake in one of its eyes, blinding it.

  It thrashed, giving Tarron time to keep up the assault on my snake. The water hit the snake in the face, and it kept its head up to avoid the spray, dodging and ducking. I stashed my bow and arrow in the ether and called upon my longest sword. Then I lunged, sprinting for the monster.

  Burn ran ahead of me, fast and sure. When he reached a spot about ten feet in front of the snake, he spun and crouched low, turning his red gaze to me.

  I got the gist immediately.

  I reached the Thorn Wolf and leapt onto his back. He pushed off, hurling me into the air. I directed my blade right at the snake’s chest, sending the metal deep into its body. I kept the blade lodged as I fell, allowing the steel to cut the snake open from within.

  Black dust burst out of its innards, an explosion of magic that made my eyes water. I slammed them shut, holding my breath. The dark silt rained down on my head, feeling like spiders crawling over my skin.

  I landed hard, then rolled, yanking my blade free as I scrambled away. From behind, Burn growled and snapped as he lunged for the snake.

  I turned, opening my eyes. The snake was writhing on the ground, black magic seeping from the huge wound in its belly. I sprinted for it, legs aching, and raised my sword high over its neck. I brought it down with a hard strike, severing the head.

  A huge poof of dusty dark magic exploded from the snake’s neck as it rolled away.

  Panting, I caught a scent on the air—putrid night lilies and brimstone.

  The queen is here.

  Heart thundering, I spun, catching sight of Tarron directing water at his own snake. We needed to take these bastards out fast.

  He blasted the blinded creature in the face, making it lunge backward, then turned his assault on Aeri’s snake, hitting it with a jet that threw it off track.

  She’d managed to hit it several times in the belly, leaving long black wounds that belched dark magic. Wally had somehow managed to jump onto the snake’s giant head and was clawing at its eyes. The little black cat managed to take out one of the fiery red orbs before he was thrown to the ground.

  Aeri lunged, putting herself between the snake and a shaken Wally. Tarron hit it with water again, driving it back from her.

  Burn lunged for the snake that Tarron had blinded, snapping and growling, trying to keep the beast from attacking Tarron while the Fae king protected my sister.

  “A
eri!” I shouted, holding my palm up.

  She got the signal, raking her thumbnail down her palm with a wince. White blood flared, bright under the moonlight. I cut my own palm, calling upon the lightning within me. It crackled and burned, surging down my arm.

  I raised my palm to face hers, and the electric energy shot from my hand, joining the current that she directed at me.

  With the electric whip formed between us, I raced toward the snake, darting around Tarron so he wasn’t caught on the wrong side of the lightning.

  Aeri ran as well, and we sprinted toward the snake, dragging our electric current with it. While the snake was reared up, trying to avoid the water that Tarron shot at it, we sliced it clean through the middle. Both halves of the body flopped hard to the ground, writhing as they shot out blasts of dark magic.

  I dodged around them, dropping my hand to kill the electricity since we were too far from Tarron’s snake to use it there.

  Tarron had already killed his jets of water and was in the sky, shooting around the snake’s blinded head and going for the tail. A fiery cloud shot toward him, as if it were drawn by his presence in the sky.

  “Tarron! Behind!” I screamed.

  He surged forward faster than I’d ever seen him fly, lunging down with his sword and striking the snake right through the middle. The powerful blow severed the snake’s body in two, and the top half dropped to the ground, writhing.

  Gone.

  They were all gone.

  But no time to recover.

  “The queen! She’s here.” A chill raced over my skin.

  “I smell her,” Tarron growled.

  We raced up the last part of the mountain, leaving the bodies behind as they disappeared, heading back to the underworld. Each of us kept our weapons drawn, and Burn and Wally stayed at our sides, galloping along with murder in their eyes.

  The top of the mountain was covered in rocks and rubble, crevasses everywhere. Each one burned with flames that shot from within the earth, a sparkling, fiery glow that was both beautiful and terrifying all at once.

  With so many huge boulders all around, it was impossible to see the queen. I caught a flash of movement from ahead of me. Pale skin and dark hair.

  “There!” I sprinted for the Unseelie.