When I found Hieronymus, he stood without any expression or sign of concern. “I will help you get into the castle, and then I’ll return to heal the injured.”
I nodded, because I had no better plan, and waited while he dressed and pulled on his pack.
Benny was already up and dressed, his pack on, when I reached him. Next to him, was Chelsea. “Chelsea is coming with us,” Benny said. “As is Vervain to help us reach the palace.”
I looked back at the camp to see my friends arming themselves. The shadows were creeping ever farther into the camp and I knew it would only be a matter of moments before the nightmares followed in their wake.
“You need to go now,” Lensy said, stepping out of the dark to stand next to Chelsea. “I’ll send Vervain after you.”
Benny and Chelsea turned and headed into the forest and Hieronymus and I followed them. We’d only made it a few feet before we encountered shadows. We veered left, but the shadows stretched to the west farther than we could see in the dark forest.
“There’s so much,” I said. “Does that mean they’re sending a lot of nightmares?”
Behind me, a scream rent the air and I heard the clash of metal against metal. I should have told them to use the saliva and the blood and fuck the element of surprise. I turned to go back, but Hieronymus grabbed my arm and yanked me tight to his side. “No,” he said. “You must go with us.”
Underbrush crashed behind us, and Vervain and Jerome burst into sight. “Let’s keep moving,” Benny shouted.
We jogged west as fast as the gnarly underbrush would allow and finally found the edge of the shadows, about five hundred yards past our camp.
“Veer Northward,” Vervain said. “We’ll stay in the wilds as long as we can.”
Benny nodded, readjusted his position and jogged forward. We all followed, the velvet darkness of the shadows a foreboding presence on our right. Dawn was just peeking through the dense forest, the warm air and the early morning dew combining to make a misty path before us, when three lizards stepped out of the shadows. Benny bent into a fighting stance and Chelsea let out an inhuman roar.
Maybe I should have been worried or nervous, but I’d just walked away from my friends while they fought a nightmare army of unknown size. I’d be damned if these lizards stopped us from reaching the fairy palace. I shifted my hands to bear paws and stepped up next to Benny.
Five more nightmares joined the four we were facing and the lizards smiled in a creepy unison, revealing sharp, white teeth.
With the help of the amulet around my neck, I could see that the lizards were small and delicate, but the amulet couldn’t change the fact that they were pissed as hell and out for blood. They flew at us in a flurry of limbs and teeth and mind control.
Five nightmares came at me from all sides at once and my focus sharpened. I tuned out the shouts behind me, I tuned out the fighting around me and I focused on the nightmares. I fought with claws and kicks and every maneuver I’d learned during our journey. I felt the sting of pain as claws broke my skin, but I fought on, until the nightmares lay still on the ground around me.
I paused a moment to catch my breath and take stock of my injuries, but more nightmares leapt at me. I focused on the nightmares closest to me, the ones reaching out for me with clawed hands and sharp teeth. Some of them even held weapons and I wondered if they’d known about our ability to block their mind control or if some of them were just weaker in that area.
It didn’t matter. I fought on and ignored the pain and the exhaustion that were eating at me.
The nightmares kept coming and I was weakening, my arms burning and moving slower than I wanted, my head aching from three too many hits. I was bleeding from various claw swipes and bites. And I may have been losing a bit of my focus. I could blame exhaustion for why I didn’t see the sword coming toward my head, but I ultimately just blame myself. I wasn’t on my game, I wasn’t paying attention.
By the time I saw the sword, silver and flashing in the evening sun, I knew it was too late. I knew I was going to die on that field among lizard corpses. I threw up an arm and I ducked, but I had time to do no more. A heavy weight hit me, knocking me flat to the ground. I heard a hiss of pain and knew it was a body on top of mine, a body that had taken the hit meant for me.
I recognized the clothing and the shape of the head and knew it was Hieronymus. Around us, Benny and Chelsea and Jerome moved closer and formed a circle of protection around us. I could hear them fighting, but it didn’t sound like they were in any danger of losing. I suspected we were only battling a small group of strays from the nightmare army.
I rolled out from under Hieronymus as gently as I could. The sword had sliced across his chest and blood was pumping out at a steady rate. His face was ashen and his breath came in short, fast gasps. I laid my hands on him, intending to heal him but, when I sunk my healing energy into him, I found myself blocked, just as my mother had blocked me when I’d tried to heal her before she died.
“Let me help you,” I said, my jaw clenched tight in fury.
“You have to conserve your strength,” he forced out. “You are the one who will save us all.”
“No. I need you. You know your way around the palace, you know—”
“No,” he said. “You know all you need.” He smirked, though his face was lined with pain. “Destroy Ludwiggia, avenge your mother, make my sacrifice mean something.”
“I will,” I said, even though I wasn’t at all sure I would succeed.
He nodded and smiled, the pain leaving his face. I squeezed his hand and held on as his eyes emptied of life and personality and he left us. My throat tight, my eyes damp, I left his side and I stood to fight. Only, there were no nightmares left standing.
“They’ll know we’ve escaped,” Benny said. “And they will send more. We need to go.”
I looked back to see Vervain standing next to Jerome, three dead nightmares at their feet. Vervain gave us a weary smile. “Go as fast as you can, straight ahead,” she said. “I have an idea.”
We ran, the sun rising and lighting our path as we went. All the forest looked the same to me. As far as I knew Vervain had never lived in or spent a lot of time in the wilds, but I trusted her. I had no other choice.
“Left around that boulder,” she shouted.
Benny and Chelsea raced around the boulder and we followed. We got there just in time to see Benny and Chelsea fall through the ground and disappear.
“Good,” Vervain said, stepping up beside us. She didn’t seem the least bit out of breath, but Jerome and I were panting loudly. “It’s still here.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Vervain shrugged. “Don’t know. My brother and I played in it when we were kids, probably a hide-out for someone.”
“You and your brother played in the wilds?” Jerome asked. There was a bit of a wheeze in his voice and I noticed he was holding his side. I took a step toward him, ready to offer to heal him, but he met my eyes and shook his head.
Vervain didn’t answer. She stepped forward and dropped into the hole. Jerome followed, apparently ready to go anywhere Vervain went without question.
I jumped into the hole, half expecting to float down a tunnel lined with furniture and tea cups, like Alice dropping into Wonderland, but I had about thirty seconds of falling and then a moment of crashing, hard, on the ground. My butt cushioned my fall a bit, and I managed not to topple over and whack my head, but I was sure I would have a purple ass for a while.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they did, I could see we were in a ten-by-ten hole in the ground. Benny and Chelsea, Jerome and Vervain, stood against the far wall. “Won’t they be able to track us by scent?” I asked. I pushed to my feet and joined their huddle.
“If they can,” Vervain said, “we’d have been dead anyway. The nearest stream is fifty-five loggerels away.”
I didn’t know how long a loggerel was, but I didn’t figure it mattered. Too far, was
too far. “So this only works if they track by sight, sound, or body heat?”
Vervain nodded, her expression nervous and unsure. “Right.”
“And how long do we stay here? We need to get to the palace and stop Ludwiggia before she sends more nightmares here.”
“Stop yelling at her,” Jerome said.
Vervain rolled her eyes. “You can’t stop Ludwiggia if you’re dead. And, like every good den, this has more than one way out. It will get us farther away more safely than rumbling through the forest like one of your freight trains. Follow me.”
She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled out of sight. Benny, Chelsea, and Jerome followed and I could see that they were all crawling into an earthen tunnel.
I lowered myself to my hands and knees and crawled. The tunnel was damp and smelled of wet dirt and mold. It was also completely dark. So dark that I bumped into Jerome’s ass more than once as I tried to follow. My wounds from fighting the nightmares screamed in protest, as did my bruised ass, but I crawled on without complaint. It felt wrong to even complain mentally, while my friends were battling for their lives somewhere above us.
We crawled until my knees were raw and aching and then the tunnel began a slow rise and sunlight lit our path. I crawled out of the ground and found myself in a part of the forest that looked exactly like the forest we’d just left. Except now, the sun was high in the sky and it was humid and muggy and hot.
Vervain bounced from foot to foot with energy or anxiety. I couldn’t tell which, because her expression was her usual one of exasperation and annoyance. “Let’s go,” she said, as soon as my head popped out of the tunnel. She took off at a run, leaping over tree roots and bramble bushes with a practiced ease. I followed as best I could, but I was scraped by brambles and I tripped more times than I could count. Jerome and Benny were in front of me and having as much trouble as I was keeping up with the girl.
We ran until I was sweaty and light-headed with exhaustion. I wasn’t even trying to run anymore, I was just doing my best to stay upright and my heart was beating a sluggish pulse that didn’t seem healthy. I tripped on a stump and pitched forward, but I caught myself before I hit the ground with my face.
Ahead of me, Jerome was still holding his side and he was stumbling and panting hard, sweat soaking his shirt.
“Vervain,” I said, as loudly as I dared. “We must stop.”
“Just another loggerel,” she called back.
I shoved my head under Jerome’s right arm. “Put your weight on me,” I said.
“I’m fine,” he grunted.
“Just do it,” I said. “You should have told me you were injured. I could have healed you.”
“I’ll be fine,” he muttered.
Somehow, we made it to a small cave and I lowered Jerome to the packed dirt ground as gently as I could.
“What’s wrong with him?” Benny asked.
“I’m fine,” Jerome said. “I just need to rest.
I pushed his hands away, he was too weak to fight me, and I lifted his shirt to see an angry gash just under his ribs, blood seeping from the wound. I placed my hands on his torso, but Benny touched my shoulder and pulled me away. “You can’t waste your strength,” he said. “You’re injured yourself and Hieronymus isn’t here to heal you.”
Shit, but he had a point. “I just need to eat,” I said. “I’ll heal him after.”
I shoved in food as fast as I could, and waited for the lightness in my head to fade. Benny was right, I’d been injured, bruised and cut, but I was still strong. Just as the food started to have an impact, Vervain rose to her feet. “We need to go,” she said.
“I need to heal Jerome first.”
Vervain looked at me, her expression bleak, the sadness in her eyes heartbreaking. “Do you not hear that?”
I listened hard and then I did hear it, the tramping of feet through brush. Someone was coming our way.
Benny and I helped Jerome to his feet and moved as fast as we could after Vervain and Chelsea. Jerome was barely able to put one foot in front of the other and he was putting most of his weight on me and Benny. We left the woods and stepped out into a wide-open field that made it easier to navigate as a three-person wide group. We walked for most of the day until we saw the walls that surrounded the palace grounds about six hundred yards in the distance. I lacked the energy to feel fear about what we were going to walk into. I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other and getting us there.
We were about two hundred yards from the palace walls when a shriek split the air. We looked up to see three crows hover over us for just a moment before they spun and headed back to the castle. “Spies,” I said. “Reinforcements will arrive soon. We need to move.” The crows had been used by the fairies as spies and it made sense to assume that Ludwiggia had figured out how to use the birds in the same way.
“No,” Chelsea said. “You and Benny must go to the palace alone. We’ll go back.”
Chelsea moved to support Jerome’s weight. I hated to leave him before I’d healed him, but I didn’t see how I had any choice. “Okay,” I said. “But be careful. They might come looking for you.”
Vervain sneered. “They won’t find us.”
The three of them turned and headed back the way we’d come.
As we got closer to the palace gates, Benny got behind me. He clasped both of my wrists in his hands, holding me imprisoned in his tight grip. I didn’t bother to fight him, I just gave him a questioning look over my shoulder. “Any chance of surprise has been lost and we have no idea what to expect from Ludwiggia,” he said. “It’s time for plan B. Are you prepared to sacrifice yourself for the greater good?”
I’d made that decision long ago. “Yes.”
“I will likely betray you, Chloe, or seem to, but you must understand that I also am interested only in what is best for the people of Rubalia.”
“I understand,” I said, though I wasn’t at all sure I trusted him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hope is vital to my survival.—Chloe Frangipani
All I need to survive is food and water. Love and the more delicate emotions are a child’s fantasy.—Benedict Dragonati
Two trolls guarded the gates to the palace. They stared at us with the empty eyes and lax expressions that indicated they were controlled by nightmares and were part of the hive mind.
“We’d like to speak to the empress,” Benny said. “I’ve brought her a gift I believe she will much like to have.”
The guards didn’t move or speak, so we waited. I was just about to kick Benny to get him to try again when the gates swung open to reveal two fairies standing in the entryway. “Follow us,” they said in eerie unison. “The empress Ludwiggia will see you now.”
I sighed with relief that I wouldn’t have to be dressed or groomed for my interview with the empress. She probably intended to kill me, but it seemed a better fate than enduring a grooming, complete with scandalously skimpy clothing and a head-ache inducing hairdo, like my mother used to insist upon.
We followed the fairies down familiar hallways to the throne room. Ludwiggia, dressed in a black, head-to-toe outfit that appeared to have been woven by spiders, sat on her throne. My mother’s throne sat empty and forlorn and my heart ached for her loss.
“Stop,” Ludwiggia said when we were about ten feet from her throne. “I’ve watched how easily you dispatched my warriors, I see no reason for you to come any closer.” She narrowed her eyes and steepled her fingers under her chin. “If you do, I might be tempted to kill you before I’ve heard what you have to say.”
With the amulet around my neck, Ludwiggia looked only a bit different. She was smaller and her features no longer struck me as beautiful or alluring. She had a sharp, angular face and her eyes were beady and lacked light. She looked more reptilian and, yet, less frightening.
“I’ve come to offer you a gift, empress,” Benny said. “I’ve brought you the fairy princess.”
“You?” Ludwiggia
asked, her smile sinister. “You who helped her to massacre my warriors now wants to pretend she is your prisoner?”
My heart picked up its pace. I’d hoped our plan would have gotten us farther than this.
Benny laughed. “You know dragons better than that, empress. We are fickle and self-serving. I fought the nightmares because I thought Chloe might succeed, but we had to flee from your army in the middle of the night. We were barely able to survive the attack from those few nightmares who found us as we escaped. Now, I see how powerful you truly are, how unlikely we are to overthrow you, and I want to serve you. I hoped this gift would act as a show of my loyalty and a promise of future service.”
Ludwiggia’s brow creased in honest confusion. “Why should I do anything other than throw you in the dungeon for daring to slay my people? Do you honestly think I believe you had nothing to do with the unholy murder of my sisters in royalty?”
“We had nothing to do with that,” Benny said. He shifted his hand and pressed one sharp talon to my jugular. “But if I am to be imprisoned, I will kill the fairy princess. I suspect you want her alive. I know how you love to make an example of those who betray you.”
Ludwiggia didn’t look horrified or angry, she looked impressed. I tried not to think about how sharp that talon was or how likely Benny was to use it if he thought my death would be the most beneficial option for him and Rubalia.
“Teaching moments are vital to good leadership,” Ludwiggia said. “I would prefer to keep the princess alive until I am ready to dispose of her in my own way and time.” She tapped one narrow finger against her chin. “What to do? What to do?”
“May I make a suggestion my empress?” Benny asked.
Ludwiggia nodded regally. “You may.”
“Put me in the dungeon and give me time to prove myself. Take us out only when we can be of most service to you.”
“No,” Ludwiggia said. “If I put you in a dungeon, it implies I am frightened of you. It is not good to show any sign of weakness. I will put you each in a lovely room while I consider how best to use you.”
Fairy, Neat (Fairy Files Book 6) Page 22