Fae Champion (Royals of Embermere #2)

1. Saved by the Skin of its Teeth, Chomp, Chomp

I strained against a force like that of a thousand gales while every set of eyes in the queen’s fancy coliseum fixed on me. I couldn’t seek any of them out, not even Rush’s, not even those who had the potential to be allies, those also discontent with the queen’s rule. Their collective attention seared my skin just the same, like a bad case of both windburn and frostbite combined—there had to be some magic pointed at me.

And yet it barely compared to what was taking place on the inside. My certainty that whatever power was barreling through me like a dragon stampede was bolstering my fading life force—not taking it all the more swiftly—was wavering. Every part of my body vibrated, a terrifying sign that I was perhaps moments away from shattering into pieces. My teeth chattered as they hadn’t since the ice storms of Nightguard, and my eyeballs ached as I imagined they would instants before bursting like overripe fruit.

Every internal organ squeezed simultaneously. Each rasping inhale was an expression of agony, each stuttering exhale a hope I’d somehow get one more—all while I pleaded to escape the pain. Even if it meant leaving my body forever, in that horrific moment I’d fucking do it—if only I knew how.

Despite my desperation, I couldn’t withdraw from the source of my torment. Couldn’t pull either of my hands away from the earth beneath them. Though I tried, my muscles wouldn’t obey, and my palms splayed and flattened to connect with the ground in as many places as possible.

Based on Azariah’s earlier pronouncement, the glamor that encased me in Zinnia’s form must have vanished entirely. But though that must also mean I was myself again, and I had years of devoted training in this body at my disposal, I found myself a victim of invisible forces I couldn’t see.

Couldn’t resist.

Couldn’t stop.

I’d studied and practiced all my life not to ever be this helpless.

Zako was failing me again. Nothing he’d taught me had prepared me for this, for much of anything I’d encountered in this cursed mirror world.

Azariah, that elegant, magical creature who was part unicorn and part Pegasus—and also the announcer of the Gladius Probatio—stammered, “My fellow fae … this is e-entirely unexpected. B-but you know our qu een. Only the best, ah, entertainment for her subjects.”

Of all the things to be able to make out, his voice shouldn’t be one of them. Until I could decide whether I was to live or die, I should be allowed moments without the reminder that I was her prisoner. The stab wound through my back was no longer salient. It now thumped in tune with my heartbeat along with the rest of my painful parts.

A commotion near the dugout was loud enough to breach the daze that encased me, and Azariah called out again, this time his voice crisp, loud enough to be heard over whatever unrest was happening to my right: “The contestant might be an unforeseen royal, but our queen is ever fair and won’t show Zinnia any favoritism. The Fae Heir Trials have begun. The magical contract is already in motion and cannot be stopped. The match will proceed according to the rules, and things aren’t looking good for our newfound royal.”

Boots wove toward me through the delicate stalks of blood-red flowers. They were a shiny black, an incongruous detail when I was fighting for my survival.

My survival .

This was Russet Sterling, I urgently recalled, visdrake of Etherantos and friend to Lennox Heath, the asshole to whom I’d shown mercy the day before, and who’d returned only to shank me in the back when no one was looking. Russet Sterling would slice off my head even without the queen’s command, which would inevitably arrive.

The many weapons still strapped to my person were too far away, impossible to reach, even more so to wield. They hung, heavy and useless, from my waist and back. But my two slim throwing knives were on the ground close by, gleaming behind the verdant grass and vibrant flowers.

Silver glimmered in the sunshine as Russet pointed a sword in the direction of my face.

I tried to lunge for my knives, but my hands remained glued to the land of the fae, from which the queen drew power while also fueling it—in what must be a putrid cycle, since it involved her. She must even now be using the land itself to make me an immobile target for her next assassin, who competed under the guise of fairness.

She’d mastered the arts of deception and artifice. When it came to her, nothing was quite as it seemed.

Russet positioned himself alongside me. His sword shone as he clutched it with both hands and raised it above his head.

I didn’t need to be fully aware of my surroundings to understand this would be a killing blow. He intended to behead me—the queen’s preferred way to dispatch with inconveniences.

Cries of alarm wafted over to me while I once more attempted to reach for my weapons, to roll out of the way, to knock his feet out from under him, to do anything at all to defend myself .

Still, my hands remained fused to the earth.

Killed by dirt , I thought bitterly. That’s gotta be a new one .

I thrashed a bit, my body scarcely obeying my commands. I couldn’t just wait for my death on my hands and knees. If the queen refused me a noble death, then I’d secure it my own way, dammit.

No part of my body moved the way I wanted. I squirmed a little, spiking new waves of near-blinding pain. With my hair up in braids by command of the murderous queen, my neck was bared to Russet.

A guttural cry filled with rage and despair wove through my senses. I suspected it was Rush. But he and I hadn’t been quite anything. We’d been strangers pitted against each other on the queen’s invisible chessboard, and he hadn’t allowed me in. I was out of chances to see if my enemy’s agent might choose a different move next time.

Air I shouldn’t be able to feel undulated in my direction. Instantly, I realized what it was.

The sign of a death blow on its way.

This was really it. Whatever power I’d hoped was trying to save me, whatever I’d wanted to feel from the earth beneath me, was only my vain imaginings.

I willed myself to have an important thought as my last, and if not that, to feel a blissful calm that would usher me to the gates of the Etherlands, where I would kick Zako’s ass for all his lies and useless preparation.

Instead, a singular resolve overtook the agony that had consumed me. No , I screamed past the whooshing in my head. Not like this. No, no, no, no, no! Fuck no. Not a pawn in a stupid game. Not without purpose. Not for a nasty queen who doesn’t deserve a single drop of the blood she sheds .

Startled gasps abruptly brought me back to my surroundings.

Too much time had passed. Had Russet decided to spare me?

My muscles still strung tight, as if the power of an entire lightning bolt continued to charge them, I dragged my gaze upward.

Russet’s sword was posed above his head, his face red with stunted effort. Sweat trickled down his brow as he strained to bring down the blade.

So it wasn’t mercy.

It was magic.

Someone or something was gifting me a reprieve—the land again, perhaps—though I suspected it’d be short. The queen would soon realize her emissary was struggling to deliver her message and would intervene.

Gaze pinned on Russet, I reached for any of my weapons. Daggers, a morning star, a sword, any of them would do.

The corded muscles of his forearms bulged with his efforts to vanquish the invisible barrier preventing his attack. His biceps groaned against his armor. His lips trembled from effort.

The sharp metal descended a hand’s length toward my head, as if it were grinding through stubborn stone.

My fingers didn’t move even a fraction of that.

I could cry. I could scream.

I didn’t, determined to win against this cruel magic that teased me with its power all while offering me up as a sacrifice to an unworthy queen.

By now, if my father the king were going to do anything to help me, he would have done it already. If Rush were to be more than the queen’s lackey, he would have run to my aid.

Russet’s sword lowered another bit. At this rate, when the blade finally did connect with my neck, it wouldn’t sever my head. He’d have to hack at it as I’d witnessed done just yesterday, never guessing I would share in that gruesome fate mere hours later.

I struggled to protect myself. All I managed was the fierce, internal cry of a warrior: Defend! Dammit, defend! The words didn’t even slip from my quivering lips.

The crash of distant broken glass sparked an eruption of startled screams. Moments later, Azariah’s voice, augmented to carry, exclaimed: “Oh dear ancestors of the Etherlands … it’s a dragon.” That one word I’d heard a million times in Nightguard shook with his fear. “No, not a dragon. A dragon head . Save yourselves!”

Panic swept through the stands above me.

A dragon head? Where the sunshine would a dragon head be coming from?

My eyes widened despite the ache in my eyeballs. True enough, a dragon head zoomed toward Russet and me with the kind of speed that suggested this wasn’t just a severed head but part of the full, magnificent creature capable of incredible grace and agility in flight.

Russet whirled toward the greater danger, bringing his sword up to meet the threat.

A streak of faded scales, the beast’s head didn’t slow as its wickedly sharp maw opened wide. The visdrake of Etherantos shrieked like a young child and scrambled backward until he bumped into my shoulder. Even to prevent him from toppling on top of me, I couldn’t get my body to move beyond stretching my head to the side.

But Russet didn’t fall—at least, not yet.

Up close, the dragon’s dark eyes were black as night, its teeth as sharp as the weapon Russet clutched uselessly, its nostrils snorting smoke instead of the fire it’d have when the head was attached to the body of a live dragon.

That jaw wrapped around Russet’s head even as the man thrashed. Row after row of spiky teeth clamped down on his neck.

Bewildered, I stared as Russet’s body stood on its feet for several seconds, blood pumping from the raw stub of his neck, spurt after arcing spurt. Bones crunched loudly enough to reach the stunned spectators. Just as noisily, the beast swallowed, and Russet’s head … disappeared.

Logic suggested there was nowhere for the visdrake to go when the dragon wasn’t attached to the rest of its body, but the only place Russet’s face—mouth open in a silent scream, eyes gaping wide, forehead scrunched into lines of terror—remained, was in a looping image in my mind.

Russet’s body crumpled into a heap, glancing off my back before sliding to the ground along with his sword.

The dragon head dissolved into a pile of ash. An otherworldly breeze picked up its remains, and the ash sprinkled across me and Russet’s corpse.

All at once, the pain overwhelming me dulled, the force preventing my moving eased, and the thumping through my ears transformed into a sharp ring.

At last sliding my palms free, I collapsed to the ground. Russet’s blood seeped across my neck, beneath my armor, and into the woven strands of my hair, slick and already growing sticky.

I lay there, waiting for life to begin making sense.

CHAPTER TWO: A Merry Band of Gruesome Stagers and Spies, and a Friendly Queen Makes my Asshole Clench

If not for the unrest overwhelming the entirety of the stadium, and its increasing volume, I might have convinced myself I was either dreaming or dead. But our audience was too vocal with its shock over the result of my match and its demands for “death to the dragons,” as if they’d somehow missed that the beast who’d come to my rescue was already dead—obviously. I didn’t know where the head had come from, but as far as I knew, the only live dragon in all the mirror world was Saffron.

Dazed, I lay sprawled on my stomach, much of one cheek plastered to the ground in the spreading pool of Russet’s blood. Nearby voices had roused me to open my eyes, and now that I had, all I could do was blink as I attempted to distill what exactly it was that I was seeing.

A handful of fairies, all the size of the ones I’d first spotted replenishing decanters and food platters in the Hall of Mirrors, flitted around Russet’s decapitated body, fussing over the scene. One with hair as bright and pink as the flesh of a ripe watermelon, and another with a head capped in grass-green strands, landed toward the edge of the puddle of blood, fanning it with pumps of their wings. Two other fairies, these with short hair in cherry red and blackberry violet-black, blew on the liquid, seemingly joining the long-haired fairies in their efforts to … expand the blood’s reach along the ground. Already, Russet’s blood coated the short grass and stubby flowers for several arm lengths around his body. Another couple of fairies stood jumping up and down atop Russet’s chest.

“Yeah, now we’re getting it,” said one of them. She had golden yellow hair the same shade as Saffron’s scales. Every time her diaphanous wings and gauzy skirt bounced, precious life liquid squirted from Russet’s neck in a red arc.

Her companion in the task, with hair and dress as white as freshly fallen snow, giggled maniacally, pounding on his chest with focused intent. “You think we can draw more from his heart area?” she asked.

“We’d better try,” Yellow answered as her landing sent a gush of more blood to join the growing slick beneath Russet’s body—and mine. “You know she won’t be happy till it’s as gruesome as it can get.”

“What’s she think we are?” Cherry asked from his spot on the ground next to the spreading puddle before sucking in a huge inhale and blowing along the edge of the liquid, forcing it to spread. “Magic makers? We can only work with what we got.”

“That doesn’t matter to her and you know it,” said Blackberry between breaths. He blew, then added, “You better save that hot air of yours for doing your job.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Cherry grumbled.

Fully decided that I wasn’t dreaming or dead, and that the merry band of gruesome stagers of the scene was indeed real, I asked, “What in the name of dragonfire are you all doing?”

As if they were a single organism made of separate parts, they jerked and swiveled, searching all around them. Their scrutinizing gazes skipped over me as if I were no more than part of the scenery.

“Where’d that come from?” White asked in a panicked pitch. “I don’t see any mouths. Or ears. Oh by dragons, do you think she heard us?”

“I don’t know,” Yellow said in an agitated rush. “She’d better not’ve or it’ll be?— ”

“Off with our heads,” several of them finished in unison.

“Then what was it?” Green asked.

I peeled my cheek off the mess beneath my face and pushed up onto one arm. “It was me.”

The six of them gasped and spun toward me. Yellow slipped off her perch, landing in goop with a red splatter. Pink’s pumping of wings faltered and she lost her balance, landing butt first in blood.

“I would’ve thought that was obvious,” I added. “It’s not like he’s”—I inclined my chin toward Russet’s remains—“going to be doing any more talking.”

The fairies were the size of hummingbirds, their eyes no larger than grape seeds, and yet their eyes grew wide enough that white rimmed their irises.

“You … can hear us?” Green asked, half reverent, half disbelieving.

“Uh, yeah. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

They exchanged looks that said far more than they were telling me.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

Again, they shared a look between them.

“Well?” I pressed.

When the others looked to White, she stood, ignoring her stained dress and skin. “Well, nothing.”

I snorted and pushed up to sitting, where I couldn’t help but notice the commotion taking place on all sides of us in the balcony, the stands, and the dugout. Everywhere, fae were yelling .

“Nothing.” I frowned. “Seriously? You’re gonna go with that?”

White batted her lashes innocently at me. They were so fine and so white, they were a whisper.

“Maybe I should tell her you were slacking, then.” I forced myself to sound disinterested although the “she” they’d been referring to had to be the queen, the long-reaching shadow of fear in Embermere.

A tiny squeak slipped from Green, and Blackberry went pale beneath his dark hair.

“Tell her, Morwenna,” Green told White, her command a tremulous whisper. “I can’t do without my head.”

White—Morwenna—narrowed her eyes and hissed at Green. “If she finds out we’ve been talking, she’ll take more than our heads. She’ll chop us up into tiny little pieces and feed ‘em to the sneakles.”

Green’s pallor grew to match Blackberry’s.

Morwenna went on to say, “Besides”—she hooked a diminutive thumb at me—“this one’s not gonna tell the queen anything. She’s as scared of her as we are.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, lifting into a crouch, testing my balance after whatever the land had done to me. “I’m not scared of the queen. Not anymore. Someone needs to do something about her.”

“And that”—Morwenna glanced at her cohorts before looking back at me—“that someone is … you?”

“Mock all you want, but if I’m going out, I’m taking her with me. She shouldn’t be allowed to do the things she does. It’s not right. ”

“Oh, I wasn’t mocking,” Morwenna said.

“She’s right,” Cherry offered. “What the queen does is wrong.”

Morwenna whirled on him so fast her hair and dress were a streak of white spattered with crimson. “Shut up,” she hissed. “What’s wrong with you? She has ears everywhere.”

I finally looked up toward the queen’s viewing balcony. Even across the distance that separated us, I could tell her eyes—and displeasure—were trained on me. The glass barrier at the front of her balcony was gone, a few jagged shards clinging to the sides, and her dragon head footstool was noticeably absent—her “prop” that had come to my rescue.

I grinned up at her, no longer concerned with pussyfooting around her and the threats she dispensed like candy. Her eyes hardened at the feral baring of my teeth. She was probably running through the litany of things she could do to hurt me, the people and creatures she could punish to get to me. Perhaps later I’d regret my brash display of rebellion. But if the entire mirror world kowtowed to her reign of terror, she had to be stopped.

This place, these fae, they weren’t my home or my people. Neither were the dragon shifters of Nightguard, I supposed. But Her Mighty Evilness had done her best to kill me today—wounding me in secret like a total coward—and I had no intention of lying still like a good little peon while she did her worst.

The hurried clip-clopping of hooves growing nearer wrenched my fury from the woman so very deserving of it. Mane, tail, and wings bouncing in a sheen of glorious iridescence, Azariah chuffed and a puff of rainbow flared from his nostrils. He pranced across the spacious field of flowers, and for a moment the majestic sight of the unisus was enough to remind me how very magical these lands must be if they could contain creatures such as he—and had once been home to dragons.

The mirror world had been created as punishment, yes, but it still possessed the innate power of Faerie. No matter what this queen had done, that essence should remain, and it was this very magic that had touched me. It had to have been. And now that the pulsing in my head and the ringing in my ears had receded, the pain scorching my insides had become bearable, and I was steady enough on my feet to remain standing, I didn’t think the land had tried to kill me after all.

If it hadn’t attempted to end me, then it must have saved me.

Azariah eyed me up and down, then cleared his throat, attempting to silence the din cascading down toward us.

“Fellow fae,” he boomed. The crowd quieted, but only for a few moments before the chatter built anew. “People and creatures of the fae,” he tried again with even less effect. “Listen up!”

The fae, it seemed, weren’t in the mood for listening.

I glanced toward the dugout where the rest of the fighters to compete today waited. The heat of someone’s stare skimmed across my body.

Rush . Those moonlight eyes of his sizzled across my face. His brows were bunched low in concern, those sensuous lips of his tugged downward, but when he noticed me looking back at him, he smiled slightly, tentatively, and widened his eyes in a Wow, I didn’t see any of that coming .

Hiroshi, Ryder, West, and Roan crowded around him, perhaps also seeking my attention, but I returned it to Azariah. Unease was quickly replacing my relief to discover myself still breathing.

“Silence,” came the queen’s voice, slicing through the cacophony as effectively as a knife. Though it wasn’t nearly as loud as Azariah’s, the fae nearest her silenced instantly, a wave of slaps and elbows to their peers sweeping across the rest of the spectators until the only sound was the wailing cry of a baby.

Ivar knelt before his standing queen, both palms pointed up toward her. His magic, it appeared, was bolstering her voice.

“My people and creatures,” she said in a tone that suggested she and they were fast friends. It only made me all the more nervous.

“A friendly queen makes my asshole clench,” whispered one of the fairies behind me, possibly Cherry.

“Tell me about it,” I muttered, drawing a curious look from Azariah that made me think he wasn’t seeing or hearing the miniature fairies .

“That was quite a bit of excitement, wasn’t it?” the queen asked with an amiable chuckle. Her subjects, however, remained silent as stones. Even the baby had quieted, probably forced into submission by a parent terrified of the possible repercussions of the interruption.

“Now you must allow Azariah to announce the winner so the probatio can continue. As you know, the magic of the Fae Heir Trials forces us to do things in certain ways, and we must uphold their rules.”

I looked to Azariah, then the fairies, uselessly searching for an ally who might fill me in. Pru—I’d have to wait for Pru for details.

“Go ahead, Azariah,” she said, lowering herself back onto her throne. My father sat behind her, his pallor back in the deathly range. His eyes were more shadowed than before, hollow.

Azariah tossed his head and pawed the ground, ripping up several flowers. When he tipped his chin up to speak, the fine hairs of his beard and hooves still fluttered.

“Ladies and gentlemen, critters and beasts, fae of all sizes and colors, we have a winner! Zinnia Who Isn’t Really Zinnia has defeated Russet Sterling, visdrake of Etherantos. She’ll proceed to the third round of fights tomorrow. Russet has brought honor to his clan. May his memory live forever. May his essence voyage to the Etherlands.”

As one, the crowd repeated Azariah’s well wishes for Russet’s departing spirit. Even the queen’s voice, still augmented, showed him an honor I wasn’t certain he deserved.

“Thank you, Azariah.” The queen rose again. Ivar bowed his head toward her feet and pushed his hands up farther.

“You’re probably wondering what happened here today.” She scanned her eager—or frightened—audience. “As you’ve seen, the fighter Zinnia is actually a carrier of royal blood. She’s the recently discovered Lady Elowyn Ashira some of you may have seen at court. She’s a distant relative of the king and, therefore … part of his bloodline. I kept her identity secret to ensure fairness within the Gladius Probatio. I didn’t want anyone taking it easy on her because of her connection to my husband. As you know, the strength of Embermere’s rulers is the strength of all the mirror world.”

Behind her, the king stooped even farther into his weak shoulders. The throne all but swallowed him.

“We can’t afford to play favorites,” she continued. “I demanded she prove her worth to faekind by competing in the fights.”

I imagined I wasn’t the only one taking notice of the glaring discrepancy with all the stuffy princesses waiting in the wings to sweep in only for the second stage of the competition.

The queen appeared unbothered by that blatant hypocrisy.

“As your queen, I take my responsibility to protect and guide you seriously. I must select the heirs most capable of doing the same. The Lady Elowyn has proven herself thus far, but the Gladius Probatio isn’t over yet. In fact, it’s far from over.”

Murmurs began among the stands until the queen glared out at them. Silence descended once more.

“She’s to be held to the same standards as every other one of our worthy contestants. She must prove to my satisfaction that she’s capable of all it takes to rule this great land, just as the other female hopefuls will be required to do as well. In Embermere, the needs of the land and its fae always come first.”

“Dragonshit,” I mumbled under my breath.

Azariah whipped a look at me. His big eyes were larger than usual, and his ears were pinned back in alarm.

Fast as a throwing knife, something zoomed straight at my face. I ducked moments before it halted to hover an arm’s length from me.

Several tiny fairy squeaks sounded below me, but I didn’t look. I was too busy staring at a … bloody, severed, floating … ear?

Azariah’s eyes widened until I thought they might roll out of his head. He subtly shook his crown at me. The movement could pass as a natural tilt of his head, but I interpreted his warning. Don’t say a word .

Glaring at the ear, more loudly this time, I repeated, “Dragon. Shit.”