Tiki’s mind raced. How could she get to Rieker and escape? There were so many guards. Several had moved to stand in front of Rieker, their spears tilted to bar passage. Even if they somehow miraculously got clear of this room, how would they get back to London without Larkin?
The UnSeelie king’s laughter died away. His expression darkened like one of the thunderclouds that had plagued London lately. “Such a tempting offer from one so beautiful—yet you have deceived me in the past, Larkin.” His words became scathing. “Pretended to pledge your allegiance to my court when you really served Eridanus.” His voice rose. “Pretended to love me when you really loved a mortal.” His voice softened. “You will pay for that.”
Larkin’s feet hung over the edge of the platform, her legs crossed in a leisurely fashion, looking elegant and seductive. “What occurred in our past, Donegal, was nothing more than two adversaries battling for the ultimate prize: the crown of the Seelie Court.” Larkin put her hands on her slim hips. “Surely you didn’t just expect me to bow down to you? Where’s the fun in that?”
Donegal slowly stroked the black hair that grew to a point on his chin, oblivious to the silent crowd who watched him.
Tiki edged down a step, but the pointed pressure of the guard’s blade on her back stopped her.
Donegal lifted his hand toward Larkin. “Tell me then. What information do you have?” The dark king swept his arms wide to encompass the entire great room— “I’m already the ruler of both courts.”
“Beltane has not passed yet, Donegal. You’ve yet to claim the Dragon Throne during Summer.”
“Simply a matter of time.” He crossed his arms with an air of supreme confidence. “There is nothing I need from you any more, my lovely Larkin.”
Larkin’s golden gown glittered in the light like a thousand miniature suns. “That’s where you’re wrong.” Her voice rang out strong and clear. “Have you forgotten the ring of the truce?
A surge of anger filled Tiki. What was Larkin doing? She glanced at Rieker. His face was impassive. Another shocked buzz of conversation filled the hall as faeries craned their necks and shoved each other, trying to see both Larkin and Donegal.
“SILENCE.” Donegal’s roar quieted the crowd. His voice was deceptively mild when he spoke again. “You speak of the ring of the truce, Larkin. Is that what you offer me?”
“I know it’s your greatest desire to destroy the truce binding our world to peace with the mortals.”
“It was my greatest desire.” Donegal slowly stroked his beard. “Fate has smiled upon me, however, and shown me another way to achieve my goals.”
“Have you forgotten there are other secrets in the ring of Éríu?” Larkin’s words sounded like a taunt. Her lips curved in a mocking smile. “Powerful secrets, which I know how to release.”
“Do you threaten me, Larkin?”
“I offer you a trade. I know where the ring is kept now.”
“You forget that I am the king here and you shall do as I command. I don’t have to negotiate with you.” He stabbed a finger in Larkin’s direction. “SEIZE HER.”
Donegal’s soldiers rushed to do the king’s bidding. The crowd swayed and shoved, trying to get out of harm’s way. Tiki could see Rieker struggling as he was pushed away from the throne by the guards, who seemed happy to use their spears as clubs. Screams and cries of help punctuated the air above the melee.
Sensing her chance, Tiki darted down the steps toward Rieker but before she could reach him, someone grabbed her arm and pulled her in the opposite direction. “This way,” a low voice whispered.
Tiki jerked around to find Sean’s scarred face inches from hers.
“I have to get to my friend,” Tiki said. She tried to tug her arm free, but his grip was too tight. “Rieker!” She stood on tiptoes, waving to get his attention as he fought the surging crowd.
“He knows how to get back,” Sean whispered harshly in her ear. “We need to get you out of here now.”
“He doesn’t,” Tiki cried, hopping up and down to get a better view. “Larkin brought us—we need her to return to London.”
Sean jerked painfully on Tiki’s wrist as he pulled her to a stop in the shadow of one of the great columns.
“Ow—” Tiki glared at him. “That hurt. Let go of me—” She tried to wrestle her arm free, but Sean’s grip only tightened.
“You’ve got to listen to me.” He leaned close to her ear. “William has been here before. He knows how to get home on his own.”
Tiki stared into Sean’s sky-blue eyes. How had this faerie known Rieker’s true name?
“He’s been here before?” she whispered. All those times when Rieker had disappeared without explanation swirled through Tiki’s memory. The times when he’d come home looking so gaunt and tired. The times he’d somehow known what was happening in the Otherworld—known how to contact Larkin. The secrets she’d wondered about—the secrets she could feel he was keeping—he’d been here.
“I’ve brought him several times during the last few months,” Sean said. “He can come and go on his own now.”
Tiki felt like she was sinking into a pit of quicksand. She stared across the floor at Rieker as he shoved and twisted, trying to work his way through the crowd toward them. A horrible realization hit her: Rieker had been the first to tell her the meaning of an fáinne sí—the first to pursue the ring of the truce. Now he protected the ring and whatever secrets it held. Had that been the plan all along? Had she been a pawn in a greater game for him to collect the ring? Was this quest for the throne simply the next move?
“FIND THE GIRL ALSO!” Donegal voice’s roared above the noise. “I WANT THE GIRL WHO DARED TO APPROACH ME—ALIVE.”
Sean yanked her behind the column. “We need to get out of here. He’ll meet us in London.”
It was hard to think straight. Donegal wanted her captured— did he realize what she’d almost revealed? She peered around the column at the crowd again, torn with indecision. Rieker was looking straight at her and waved for her to go.
Sean tugged on her wrist again, harder this time. “He’s telling us to go—to get to safety.”
“You’re sure?” Tiki asked. Her body felt like it might split apart from the weight of her indecision.
Donegal roared again. He was standing in front of his throne now – staring into the middle of the Great Hall. “WHERE IS LARKIN?”
“I’m positive. Come.” Sean pulled her through the shadows away from the chaos.
Soldiers were yelling answers back to their king. People were screaming, running for any way out they could find, while guards blocked the exits.
Tiki followed, trying not to think for fear her head might explode. A beautiful young woman suddenly appeared in front of her, blocking her way. By the stricken look on the girl’s face, it was obvious she was trying to find a way to escape, too. Sean pulled Tiki in the other direction and the girl disappeared into the shadows.
Passing behind the great black and gold fluted columns, the faerie took Tiki through a small hallway that led behind the Great Hall where the Dragon Throne stood. Her heart pounded wildly as Tiki glanced over her shoulder to see if they were being followed, but the hallway was winding and shadowed.
“The next hallway has a door that leads outside,” he whispered. “It’s our only chance—they’re looking for you now.” As if to accent his point, a distant shout sounded from the Great Hall.
“Where’s the girl?” The sound of running feet approached.
Tiki’s pickpocketing instincts kicked in. She yanked her hand out of Sean’s grip. “I can run faster if my hands are free.” She kicked off her shoes and clutched them in her hands, her bare feet quiet against the stone floors. Sean nodded and hurried forward.
He stayed close to the wall as he crept down the winding passageway, Tiki on his heels. They turned a corner and another grand hallway stretched before them with soaring ceilings and great columns along one side.
Tiki’s mouth dropped open. The
hallway was lined with doors. “How in bloody hell are we going to find our way out?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sean looked over his shoulder. “I know the way.” The sound of running feet grew louder in the hallway they’d just left. Sean pulled her deeper into the shadows behind one of the soaring columns.
“Get down,” he whispered.
Tiki crouched, pulling her dark hair over her face to hide her pale skin. Sean shielded her with his body, a knife clutched in his hand. Soft words of Gaelic fell from his lips. Was he creating an illusion to shield them?
A rough looking soldier sprinted into the hallway, a spiked maul on a chain in one hand, a curved sabre in the other. He glanced up and down the long corridor, his gaze brushing past their hiding spot. “Sullivan, the side hall is clear,” he called out. “Head to the front, I’ll check the back hall. Shoot to stop her—not to kill.”
An answering call echoed in the distance.
Sean pressed his hand against Tiki’s arm. Only when the echo of the retreating soldier’s footsteps faded did he pull Tiki to her feet. He put his finger to his lips.
Tiki followed him silently down the hallway. The faerie hurried past twelve doors before he stopped. With slow precision he turned the gold handle. The cold wind blew in through the open door. Tiki let out a sigh of relief.
They slipped through the crack and Sean carefully turned the handle to close the door noiselessly. Tiki slid her feet back into her slippers. From the light of the waxing moon, she could tell they were on the side of the Palace and much closer to the edge of the precipice on which the building was perched. The trails were not well-defined on this side and she gazed doubtfully at the maze of impenetrable brambles that stretched before them.
Sean led with sure steps, though the path was dark and confusing. Thorns tore at the silky cloth of Tiki’s dress as she fought her way through the prickly path, always listening for the sound of pursuit.
He was ahead of her as they neared the edge of the stone mountaintop when Tiki stopped to tug her skirt free from a grasping thorn. When she looked up again, Sean had disappeared. Panic flared through her like a match to paper. Where had he gone? She looked up and down the trail but there was only darkness and shadows.
Tiki held her breath as she inched forward and peered out over the edge of the cliff. Had he fallen? Far below, through the watery light of the partial moon, she could see the tops of the giant trees that made up the Wychwood Forest. She felt like a bird, perched in some otherworldly cloud fortress.
In the distance shrieks and cries echoed as party-goers spilled out onto the palace grounds. Tiki crept closer to the edge, clutching her skirts, and peered cautiously into the void. Suddenly, a hand appeared and Sean’s voice drifted up to her.
“You have to jump. Take my hand and I’ll help you.”
Jump? Tiki’s breath caught in a gasp. Jump over the edge? The angle of the moonlight didn’t illuminate the darkness of the mountain below the gardens. She couldn’t see where she was supposed to jump to, but she could see enough to know if she missed, she would suffer a very painful death.
Tiki reached out shaking fingers to grip Sean’s hand and squinted hard to see the treacherous path that lay below her. Her slippers slid on several loose rocks and she clamped down on her lip to stop from crying out. Shouts grew louder in the distance accompanied by the bark of a dog. She took a deep breath and plunged over the edge.
Though Sean held tight to her fingers, those seconds suspended in air felt like a lifetime. To miss the trail and plummet off the edge was certain death. Sean caught her in his arms as she landed. Relief flooded her and she clutched his shoulders to steady herself. As she became aware of how close their bodies were pressed together she hurriedly pushed herself away.
“Th…Thank you,” Tiki said as she brushed at her skirts. The awkward moment was quickly replaced with dismay as she realized the path before them was nothing but a goat trail cut out of the side of a vertical mountain. She pointed. “Are we going down that?”
She thought she heard him chuckle. “It’s our best escape.”
“Why can’t you take me back to London the way Larkin brought us here?”
Sean shrugged. “Only the oldest, most powerful faeries can transport at will. The rest of us have to go through the gates.”
Hidden in the darkness below the ledge where they couldn’t be seen gave Tiki a slight sense of relief. “The gates?”
“Of course. The gates between the realms. The Wychwood is used often because there are so many exits, but we could go through the Goblin Market, too.” Sean started walking down the path.
“The Goblin Market?” Tiki repeated faintly as she followed, taking small, tentative steps as she focused on the narrow, rocky path. She didn’t dare look over the edge.
“I think you call it Covent Garden Market in London.”
Tiki jerked to a stop. “What?”
“But the goblins are a nasty lot,” he said softly over his shoulder. Seeing she had stopped he motioned for her to follow him. “They bring their fruit to market but they don’t want to be paid with coin—they only want to trade—and always at a steep price.”
Tiki took a few more steps down the steep slope. “But I’ve been to Covent Garden many times,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone who looks like a… like a goblin.”
“Ah, well. That’s most likely because of the time of day you went.” He reached back and offered his hand and Tiki gratefully placed her fingers in his. To plunge off the side of this trail would be all too easy and a sure death. “The Goblin Market opens at the stroke of midnight and disappears at the first light of dawn. That’s the only time you can get through the gate as well.” He turned on a sharp switchback in the trail and continued downward with sure steps. “Best to go through the Wychwood,” his voice lowered, “though to be certain, there’s risks to be found there, as well.”
With a tight grip on his hand, Tiki glanced out at the panorama that lay before them. Though the forest still looked a great distance below, they were making progress down the mountain. She shuddered at the thought of traveling through the haunted wood. Her heart squeezed. Even if they survived, how would Rieker possibly find them?
BY THE TIME they reached the bottom of the trail and descended onto flat ground, the moon had sunk low in the night sky, the cloud cover making the night even darker. The trees of the forest grew right up to the base of the pinnacle of rock where the palace sat, so they were able to slip among the shadows under the trees without worry of being seen from above.
“Very few know of that trail,” Sean told Tiki as he veered between giant trees, “and even fewer know of this one.” For the first time that night, he smiled and in the dim light his features were transformed, as though the scars that marked his face had been erased. For a second, he reminded her of Dain again.
“How long will it take us to get through the forest?” she asked. Already the weight of her gown pulled at her waist, the hem ripped from the thorns and sodden from the night dew.
“Tonight we’ll hide in a small stonecutter’s cottage that has been abandoned to the thicket. We can light a fire without fear of being seen and rest for a bit before we start out again. We’ll need to think about food, as well.”
At his words, Tiki’s stomach growled. With all that had happened, food had been the last thing she’d thought about, but she realized now she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Can I eat faerie food?” Stories she’d read over the years that told of mortals who had consumed faerie food and forever longed for the Otherworld flitted through her mind.
Sean raised his head in surprise. “Why wouldn’t you be able to? You’ve got fey blood, haven’t you?”
Tiki hesitated. So many things had happened in such a short period of time that she’d avoided thinking too hard on any one of them. She’d tried only to escape, to survive. She worried whether Rieker had escaped, too. She’d looked over her shoulder a thousand times to see if he
might be following them—if only so she could pummel him to an inch of his life at keeping such secrets from her.
“I…I don’t know for sure,” Tiki finally said. The Stone of Tara had very definitely not roared when she’d touched it. Had Larkin made the story up just to use Tiki as a decoy for whatever game she played with Donegal? She didn’t know what to believe—about anything.
“You’ve got the sight,” Sean said matter-of-factly. “Plus, there’s a reason for everything Larkin does and there’s no reason for a mortal to be here, especially now.”
Unless Larkin meant to do her harm. Perhaps this was the faerie’s way of eliminating Tiki as her competition so she could continue her romantic pursuit of Rieker? Tiki shook her head, wishing she could shake her thoughts away too. She tugged at her skirt as it became tangled once again in the undergrowth.
“Why did Larkin want her wing back?”
Sean shrugged. “She didn’t want Donegal to have it. He collects them, you see.”
Tiki scrunched her nose in distaste. “He collects wings?”
“More precisely, the wings from opponents he has conquered. Usually they’re dead when he takes them, though. Then he mounts them on his walls as trophies of his kills.”
Tiki choked. “That is ghastly.”
“It’s a tradition that Braeden, the very first high king of the Winter court, started a millennia ago.” He glanced over at Tiki. “That’s why faeries don’t wear wings anymore. Only the bravest—” he gave a soft snort— “or the most arrogant wear them.” There was a grudging note of respect in his voice. “Larkin is both.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
They followed a faint trail, winding through trees that towered above their heads. The wind blew through the branches creating a soft music and as Tiki followed Sean deeper into the forest there was no doubt she’d entered a different world.
Stunted trees stood along the path, the bark of their trunks twisted into woody faces that seemed to watch their passage. Large, vicious-looking black birds with jagged wings and beaks hooked like scimitars flew through the branches overhead with raucous cries. Tiki shivered every time their shadows brushed her back.
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