He was right. I slid down to the ground and dropped my head against the rough bark, closing my eyes to block out the shifting colors of the sky. Moving so quickly through the forest had brought back the intense weariness I’d felt after using my magic on Rourke’s broken body.
“You haven’t recovered enough from your healing powers,” he said firmly. “We’ll just have to go by foot.”
My eyelids cracked open so that I could peer up at him. He was the perfect picture of calm, a silhouette of pure steel against the soft Autumn sun. “I don’t think we have time for that, Rourke. If we’re going to stop this war, we need to get back to the Summer lands as soon as possible. By dawn, if we can. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait a whole other day to get through the archway.”
His jaw clenched tight. “You’re right. I could try to run the entire way without stopping, but I know what would happen. I would push past the exhaustion and end up collapsing. Sleep would consume me for hours. We wouldn’t make it in time.”
An idea sprouted in my mind. A terrible one, no doubt, but it was the only one I had. “We’re right by that Wilde Fae village. And they sleep during the day, yes? So, we can sneak in and take something that would help us get home. Do they have horses?”
Rourke turned, his eyebrows raised so high they hit the golden strands of his hair. “Sneak into a Wilde Fae village?”
I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “Sure, why not?”
He let out a low chuckle. “You really are a strange mixture of both Autumn and Summer, aren’t you? Well, for one, the Wilde Fae would tear us apart if they caught us. And two, you’re still recovering from that spell.”
“Now that I have the stone, shadowing doesn’t take much out of me at all,” I countered. “I’m perfectly capable of keeping us hidden while you rustle up some horses for us, which means we won’t get caught.”
“This is a terrible idea,” he said, but I could see that he was already working out a plan in his head. He gazed through the trees at the towering wooden wall of the nearby village, his calculating eyes piecing together parts of a puzzle I couldn’t yet see. “Okay, come on, and stay close to me.”
A scream ripped from my throat, so sharp and loud that a flock of birds took flight from a nearby tree’s twisting branches. I waited only a stone’s throw away from the Wilde Fae gates, heart rattling inside my ribcage. My hand slipped into the depths of my cloak, and I felt the smooth stone underneath my trembling fingers. I didn’t need to touch it to know my magic was working, but it made me feel better all the same.
After several quiet moments passed, I tipped back my head and screamed again. This time, the little hatch beside the gates cracked open, and a single green eye peered out into the clearing where I stood.
Rourke hovered with his back pressed against the wooden walls, his finger pressed tightly against his lips.
When the guard found nothing but the shaking tree limbs and the scuttle of fading leaves against the ground, he harrumphed and shut the hatch. So, I screamed again. Immediately, the hatch flew open, and the fae leaned out of his little hatch to see what all the commotion was about. His mismatched eyes gleamed as he raked them across the clearing, his parched lips stretched tight across his leathery face. And then his tongue darted out, as if the sound of my screams had driven him to hunger.
When we’d been planning our mission into the village, Rourke had told me something that had made all the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. He’d said, “Wilde Fae are partial to damsels in distress.”
I’d frowned and cocked my head. “You mean, they like to save them? That doesn’t make sense with everything else you’ve said about them.”
“Not save them. They like to eat them.”
So, of course, now I was standing in front of their village screaming my head off, just daring them to come out and find me so they could swallow me whole.
The guard slammed the hatch again, but this time, the gate began to crank up from the ground, the steel shuddering as it rolled. The gate stopped halfway, and the guard ducked under so he could take a look outside. He had a sword slung across his back, not in his hands. Clearly, he thought the damsel in distress, wherever she was, was no threat.
I shuffled my feet on the ground, just to make a little noise and catch his attention. Because when he took two more curious steps my way, Rourke launched at him from behind. It was over within seconds. Rourke wrapped his arms around the guard’s head and snapped it to the side, and then held the male’s weight and dragged him around the far corner of the village wall. I watched, heart stuck in my throat. It had happened so quickly that it was almost as if it hadn’t happened at all.
Now I could see why Autumn fae often turned to lives as assassins. They were good at it.
When Rourke returned to my side, he clasped my hand to join me in the shadows. “Come on. We need to get in and out before someone notices the gate.” He searched my eyes, seeing my unease and hesitation. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I just…” The snap of the fae’s neck still echoed in my ears. “I guess I’m still not used to so much death.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Norah, but he would have killed us. Or worse.”
“I know that,” I said with a nod. “I just wish the world didn’t have to be like this.”
He squeezed my hand. “Me too.”
And with that, Rourke and I whispered into the village of the Wilde Fae like a pair of ghosts. We stopped first at the guard tower and finished cranking the gate so that it was fully open when we needed to go. The fae would all be asleep. They shouldn’t notice anything amiss in the few moments it would take us to procure some horses.
Indeed, the village felt like a ghost town. With the sun climbing high in the sky, it was an alien experience to walk along the dirt-packed road with no one but us and a few scurrying rats in search of scraps. The door of the tavern swung in the breeze, creaking on old and rusted hinges. We slowed as we passed by, though we spotted no one inside. And all of the other shops and taverns were the same.
“Wait.” Rourke stopped short and cocked his head to the side as if he were listening. “Do you hear that?”
I frowned and tried to listen, but the enhanced senses that fae possessed were still developing in me. So, all I heard was the rustle of the wind. “What is it?”
His grip tightened, and his expression went sharp. “Whining. Some kind of animal. No, not whining. It’s neighing. I think they have our horses.”
My heart jolted in my chest as Rourke led me back the way we came. He stopped outside the butcher shop, his chest heaving with belabored breaths. “They’re inside there, which means they’ve captured them for slaughter. Do you know what they do to the animals they eat, Norah?” When Rourke turned to me, his eyes were dark and hollow, seeped through with a painful kind of anger that made me gasp.
I knew right then I didn’t want to know what these Wilde Fae did to their meat. I knew his words would haunt me. I knew they would give me images I’d never be able to shake. But I could no longer run from things that scared me, or back down when confronted with the horrors of the world.
“Tell me,” I said.
“They do not kill them,” Rourke said, his voice pained. “They keep them alive, through magic, and eat them slowly. Over weeks, months. The animals are in agony, sometimes screaming from the pain they endure. But the Wilde Fae like their meat fresh off the bone and dripping with living blood. It is a horror what they do.”
Something cold hit my cheek, and I reached up to find I’d started crying. A deep sadness had sunk into my bones, but it wasn’t from the spell I weaved with the shadows. Not this time. It was for all the creatures who had been tormented by these cruel, vicious fae, and for all of those who still would be.
“We have to get them out of there,” I whispered. “We have to take them with us.”
Rourke gave a nod. “Follow me.”
We eased up the steps of the butcher shop, and the wooden boards creaked u
nderneath us. I tried to keep my breathing steady. The fae were asleep. They wouldn’t hear our movements. By the time they realized that outsiders had been in their midst, we’d be long gone.
The door clicked when Rourke pressed it open, and the scent that drifted out to us made me gag. It was a stale stench, one mixed with iron, death, and rotting flesh. There was blood everywhere. It painted the floors and the walls and the long skinny tables set with plates, forks, and knives. My chest heaved as I stared at the sight. The fae ate in here. There were tankards scattered about. They drank here, too. While they tormented animals.
My body trembled, and it took every single cell of power in my soul to keep my feet exactly where they stood. I wanted out of here. My mind begged me to flee.
A neigh drifted out to us from behind a doorway to our right. My eyes met Rourke’s, and we both swallowed hard. I knew his thoughts as if they were my own. We didn’t know what we would find on the other side of that door. We didn’t know what kind of state they might be in.
Rourke let go of my hand. “We need to let go of the shadows. The poor creatures won’t be able to see us otherwise.”
With a nod, I dropped the shadows. Instantly, I felt an ache in my gut, as if a distant, long-forgotten part of me was now missing. That’s strange, I thought to myself. Perhaps it was a side effect from using the power so much and for so long. I’d been shadowed almost constantly since Rourke was kidnapped. Maybe that was too much, even with the stone to protect me from the darkness.
Whatever the reason, it wasn’t important now. We needed to focus on these horses, and then get the hell out of here.
Rourke and I inched toward the door and slowly eased it open. Inside, the room held the same sickening paint of blood that the rest of the butcher shop did. Our two horses were chained up to the wall. Both of them were covered in red. Tears sprang into my eyes as I felt their fear and their despair flood into my mind. How much were they hurt? It was impossible to tell, not with all that blood.
Closing my eyes, I reached for my magic, testing and feeling and gently prodding through the horses’ fear. I couldn’t access their memories to find out what had happened, but I could sense how they were feeling now. Despite all their fear, I could find no pain. Just panic. With a soft, soothing voice, I murmured out loud, slowly caressing their panic away.
When I opened my eyes, Rourke was staring at me. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost.
“Rourke, what’s wrong?” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder and half-expecting to find a Wilde Fae staring back at me.
“If I didn’t know better, I would swear you’re related to Marin. What you did just then…” He shook his head. “You remind me so much of her.”
“What?” I whispered, heart stuck in my throat. “Is that…is that possible?”
“No, it’s not. All of her family died years and years past, and she never had any children. Besides, we know who the four fae couples are who gave up their offspring that year for the tithe. They are normal Lesser Fae of their Courts with no connections at all to Marin. It’s almost as though the realm realized it was time the Greater Fae returned to these lands…so it’s given us you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, heart pounding hard.
“Is it?” He raised his eyebrows. “Look at what is happening now. War, Norah. And if Spring attacks Winter after Autumn attacked Summer, we’ll be nothing left but pieces soon. We need something—or someone—to remind us that we aren’t as different as we all think. We need to be united once again.”
“What a load of horse shit.” A growl echoed from the open doorway behind us. With my heart in my throat, I whirled toward the sound, coming face to face with a female fae that was as tall as the roof of the building. Her skin was a sickly green, and her red matted hair hung down to her waist. She leaned forward and sniffed before lobbing a mouthful of spit at my feet.
“Norah.” Rourke’s voice had been warm and full of passion only moments before, but that eerie iciness had settled back into his words now. “Come to me.”
The Wilde Fae snapped out her hand and twisted yellow fingernails around my wrist. “She’ll be staying right here with me until you tell me what you’re doing in my shop. You trying to steal my meat? Bad move on your part, you Autumn filth. I haven’t even had a chance to serve any of it yet.”
So I’d been right. The horses hadn’t been harmed. Not yet, at least. Relief buzzed in my heart.
“Let go of me.” I kept my voice steady and calm, doing my best to match Rourke’s tone, but my heart was galloping like a horse at top speed.
“You look familiar.” She narrowed her eyes and sniffed again. “Wait a minute. Weren’t the Queen’s guards searching this place for a changeling female last night? They said she had blonde hair…MALEK!”
Her sudden shout made me jump. Seconds later, a burly male fae stomped up behind her, sniffing and peering over her shoulder with squinted red eyes. “What’s this shouting all about? You catch some thieves trying to get our fresh meat?”
“It’s that changeling everyone was getting all excited about last night.”
“A changeling, huh?” He grunted. “Changelings are nothing special.”
“No, this one is,” she insisted, her eyes glittering. “The Queen’ll pay top marks for this one. Go get Quarn. He knows how to make contact.”
Steel whistled through the air by my ear as Rourke moved at a speed that could rival light. His blade stopped just before it hit the female fae’s arm, the one she was using to keep me trapped in place.
“If you go anywhere, I will not hesitate to slice through your mate the way you do with your meat,” Rourke said, his eyes locked on the male. “So, if I were you, I would stay right where you are.”
The Wilde Fae hissed, but he didn’t dare move an inch. “You’re going to live to regret this, you Autumn filth.”
The insult just rolled right off Rourke’s back. I was coming to realize he was more than used to it.
“Shadow,” he said to me. “You can slip out while I fight them.”
“Rourke, no.”
“Do it,” he said through clenched teeth. “This isn’t up for debate. Remember what you promised me.”
I did remember, and until now, I hadn’t felt prepared to break that promise. But something had shifted in me these past few days. Maybe it was because of my growing feelings for Rourke or maybe it was because I was quickly realizing I wasn’t quite as useless as I’d feared. It was still hard for me to imagine myself as a Greater Fae, but I now knew I had a strength within me that was far more important than my ability to call upon powers no one had expected me to have.
I wouldn’t leave Rourke here to fight these Wilde Fae alone. Not when we were better off working as a team.
Of course, he was probably going to kill me when he saw what I had planned.
Taking a deep breath in through my nose, I gathered the shadows around me. Instantly, the room exploded into chaos. Rourke danced back away from the door, most likely to give me space to escape. Both fae cried out in anger. They whirled, grasping at the air where I’d been only moments before. And then they turned their rage onto Rourke.
I’d trained for this. I was ready for this.
With my gaze focused hard on the fae, I pulled my sword from my scabbard and pushed the shadows away. My sword sliced through the air as I swung toward the male fae. He spotted me just in time, jumping to the side and grabbing an axe from the corner. Heart hammering hard, I tightened my grip on the hilt. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rourke battling it out with the female. She’d managed to produce two daggers, and her movement almost matched the speed of his.
I had to keep the male busy, even though his weapon was the size of my head and dripping with a thick, ghastly red.
I bent my knees and raised my sword before me, still and steady and calm.
The Wilde Fae chuckled. “You think a tiny little changeling like you can really survive in a fight against me?”
/> “Why don’t you try me?”
“I don’t actually want to hurt you,” he said. “How ‘bout you just lower that sword, and you can enjoy some of that meat right there instead?”
“So that you can sell me to the Queen of Autumn? Yeah, I don’t think so, buddy.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Now, listen here. You come in here disturbing my sleep and messing around with my meat. You should be lucky I don’t chop off your head right now.”
“Like I said, you’re welcome to try.” I lifted my lips into a smile. I hadn’t moved the entire time he’d been babbling. My hands were steady, though my arms were beginning to ache under the weight of the sword. I could tell my calm demeanour was beginning to rattle him. And it was clearly pissing him off.
Without another word, I swung my sword again. This time, he didn’t see it coming, but he got his axe in front of his body just in time. Steel slammed against steel, a sound that crackled so loud it made my ears ring from the force of it. I stumbled back and narrowed my eyes, taking a moment to catch my breath. This fae was strong, and his axe even stronger. Rourke was still in the corner, battling it out with the female and her daggers.
Suddenly, I had an idea.
With a deep breath, I disappeared.
The butcher let out a cry of alarm and strode forward with rounded eyes. He whirled this way and that, moving so quickly that I had to dance to the side to avoid getting smashed. With a grunt of rage, he swung his axe through the empty air. I ducked out of the way, holding my breath when the floor creaked beneath my feet. But he didn’t hear the sound, not with his own heavy footsteps and the roars that only intensified as the seconds ticked by.
Suddenly, he went still. He cocked his head as if listening. This was my chance. Maybe my only chance. Pressing my lips together to keep my breath from whispering from my mouth, I slowly stood behind him. My heart roared in my ears as I raised my sword. This felt wrong, in a way, but I knew what I had to do if I wanted us to survive. Gripping the hilt tight in my shaking hands, I shoved the blade into the butcher’s neck.
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