Fae Champion (Royals of Embermere #2)

3. A Tempest With a Roar and Bite, AKA the Pit of Devouring

3. A TEMPEST WITH A ROAR AND BITE, AKA THE PIT OF DEVOURING

The alchemist’s potions crept toward him and me, murderous, encroaching vines that slunk and swayed, alarmingly seductive. Around my hold on the pudgy man, I felt myself leaning forward, drawing him closer with me, desiring to give in to the lure of the substances, whatever they were. A rainbow of mesmerizing mists danced like snakes, weaving around our legs.

Braque’s voice, usually either taunting or subservient, depending on whom he was addressing, was tight with panic. So rapidly that the sounds blurred together, he began chanting. I didn’t recognize any of the words, but I didn’t need to. Whatever he was doing, it wouldn’t benefit me.

I snapped out of the trance the potions were weaving and slapped a hand to his mouth. For a few moments he mumbled around my hand, but when that didn’t work well, he bit down on my fingers hard enough to draw blood before grinding his jaws back and forth in an attempt to dig down to the bone.

He was more frightened of the contents of his satchel than he was of the dagger I had pressed to his throat.

I sliced across his neck, from one ear to the other. Not enough to cause lethal levels of damage, but the sharp reminder of who had the upper hand served its purpose. He stopped gnawing on me and shut up.

For several strained beats of anticipation, nothing else happened. Even the crowd seemed to hold its collective breath as we all waited.

Just as I started to think the potions would do nothing, that they likely needed Braque’s interaction to activate, the earth beneath his bag trembled. At first, the motion was so subtle it might have been imagined. But before long, the ground shook hard enough to rattle my weapons, and I had to ease up on the blade against Braque’s throat to ensure I didn’t end him prematurely.

“What’s happening?” I asked him.

His head perfectly still, he grunted. “Not even I know. These elements should never be combined all at once like this. You’ve unleashed a reaction I can’t halt until its run its course. We’ll need the fortune of dragons to survive the next several minutes.”

The guards surrounding us heard him and attempted to back away slowly, as if the magic unfolding were a vicious beast they shouldn’t startle.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Braque told them. “It won’t let you escape. ”

A couple of the guards farthest back spun and ran.

The smoky mist closest to them turned black and lunged for them with the speed of an adder.

When it was upon them, the smoke bifurcated, wrapping around their ankles and tugging them downward. The men crashed to the ground and instantly turned onto their stomachs, clawing at the field, tearing up flowers, the mist dragging them toward the location of the broken glass, where the earth was spreading open, swirling.

It swallowed Braque’s bag and the debris with ease—pulled one guard in, then the other.

With a wet squelching, both men vanished.

The others stood rooted to the spot, unmoving.

Azariah, far enough away from the vortex, walked backward, never taking his eyes from the widening pit, and seemed to escape the magic’s notice.

Good . At least the majestic creature would be free of whatever I’d done.

The hole gaped and grew, whining now as it whirled more swiftly, gaining strength and momentum.

“Seize her. Stop her,” the queen yelled from the safety of the balcony.

Not even Braque obeyed.

Stare affixed on the spreading chasm, another of the guards whispered, “May our memories live forever. May our essences voyage to the Etherlands.”

Some with shaky voices, others appearing numb to the inevitability of their unanticipated fates, the remaining guards parroted his sentiment .

“Brothers,” continued the same guard, “I’d say it’s been an honor to have served with you, but now … as I contemplate my death … there hasn’t been honor in much of what we’ve done. We’ve served a false queen, too dark for the true magic of the mirror world.”

Despite the circumstances, Braque gasped in borrowed offense, and that disembodied ear appeared from out of sight, racing toward the guard. But its mass was too slight compared to the rest of us, and the tornado within the earth sucked it into its maw, where it disappeared.

“Traitor. You shouldn’t say such things,” Braque hissed.

The guard, whose expression was old despite the youth of his features, met the alchemist’s glower. “It’s the truth. She’s foul, and so are you. I haven’t been able to speak my mind for all of my life. I’ve been forced into service, made to harm those that, as Lady Elowyn here pointed out, the queen should’ve protected. I’ve been made to be as dark as she is, and I won’t take that with me to my death. At the very least, these final moments’ll be mine , and I’ll speak my truth.”

Braque jerked his gaze up to the stands. But though every set of eyes was on us, I doubted a single fae could hear what the man said. The whirling was growing louder, deeper, spreading beneath the ground. A tempest with a roar—and bite.

Despite the fates of the previous pair, another of the guards tried to retreat.

The swirling somehow sensed his intentions, for the man took no more than one step when the misty vines surged toward him, wrapping both his legs, and yanked him into the expanding pit.

Even I gulped this time.

The guard speaking his mind stared down into the vortex, nodding his resolve before looking up at me. “Lady Elowyn, you’ve got royal blood. If you survive this”—he gestured to the hole that was now sucking in grass and flowers by the greedy mouthfuls—“do whatever you can to be the next female heir, whatever it takes. The mirror world needs you . The darkness of Embermere is spreading to all parts of our world. In every clan there are those who seek a better way for our kind.”

His eyes were resigned to his fate, pleading with me. “If you do it, then our deaths will’ve been worthwhile. She can’t keep ruling. She’ll ruin everything that makes us who we are. Every day she’s on the throne takes us farther away from the ways of Faerie.” He smiled morosely. “ We need you .”

“He’s right,” one of the others chimed in. This man was older, his faced lined in parts. “The mirror world’s nothing like it used to be. Her darkness is killing us.”

“Ingrates. Traitors,” Braque scolded. “You should be kissing your queen’s feet, not?—”

“You do enough of that for the lot of us,” the first guard said. “And if you survive this, I’m sure you’ll continue.”

Braque opened his mouth. I pushed my blade into the groove I’d already opened in his skin, causing the cut to drip a new trail of blood down his neck, sopping into the collar of his shirt. He clamped his teeth shut, sucking air through them with a hiss.

Keeping his feet rooted, the guard with a conscience twisted his torso so he faced much of our audience. Then he yelled as loudly as a bear, “Forever as one in the light. Forever divided in the darkness.”

A few stunned moments passed before those in the stands began to repeat his call. There was no cohesion, but there was no mistaking that a significant minority joined in his sentiments.

“Bring down the queen before she’s the end of us all,” the guard shouted.

A few isolated cries of “Death to the queen” rang from the bleachers, and the queen, whose voice was still being augmented, gasped her affront, then cried out, “You ungrateful traitors. Braque, kill the guards.”

And though only one of them had openly defied her, Braque raised his stubby fingers in their direction and dragged them through the air in front of him before I realized he was doing magic, and kicked out at his hand.

But the whirling pit tilted on its axis to point its suction their way. Though their feet didn’t move of their own volition, the guards slid along the earth, churning up the grass and flowers beneath them with futile resistance.

The rebellious guard, his eyes morose, angled his face upward, bellowing once again, “Forever as one in the light. Forev?— ”

The pit ate him up.

“Forever divided in the darkness,” completed some fae from the stands as the rest of the guards disappeared behind him.

The whirling mist, now with a diameter twice the length of my body, sucked flowers, grass, and soil into it. The ground stretched and creaked before yielding, dirt circling in the air above it before descending into its depths.

“Are we safe from it now that it’s pointing the other way?” I asked Braque.

“Maybe. Probably. Safe from it anyhow. But you’ll never be safe from Her Majesty, not after what you’ve done.”

I chortled darkly. “I was never safe from her to begin with.”

“True. My queen’s reach is long, her power mighty.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” I answered distractedly. Giving a wide berth to the gluttonous hole, Rush, Hiroshi, Ryder, and West were making their way across the field. Ivar, no longer on the balcony with the queen, stood where they had at the edge of the dugout, watching their approach with a ferocity that suggested I’d insulted him instead of her with my little speech. Lennox and the surviving members of his band of bullies stood in a line behind the queen’s attendant, broadcasting their alliance.

The dwarf, Roan, stood apart from them all, leaning on his ax and looking as if he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. For what though, I wasn’t certain.

“Back us away very, very slowly,” Braque whispered to me.

“It won’t suck us up?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped. “This is chaos. I don’t do chaos. My magic is organized. But if you’re threatening to kill me anyway, I may as well take my chances.”

“You can’t close the pit?”

“No more than you can right now.”

“Will it stop on its own?”

“Not likely.”

“Then what?”

He snorted, his throat bobbing against my blade, causing him to shrink back against me to ease the pressure. “That’s the problem with you. You don’t think before you act. You don’t care what havoc you wreak.”

“Hey! I didn’t ask to be here. Your precious rulers brought me here. Blame them, not me.”

“You were supposed to obey,” he said.

“Sorry to disappoint,” I quipped, though I obviously wasn’t sorry in the least.

Rush and his friends were coming up behind us. Their weapons were sheathed, and Rush had his hands out in front of him as if he were approaching a spooked dragon.

“Elowyn,” Rush called ahead.

Slowly, so slowly that it took us a full half minute, I turned with Braque in front of me, my back eventually to the pit, which was still eagerly consuming everything in its path from the opposite direction. What was left of Russet was gone now too.

“You’re also betraying my queen?” Braque asked, tone sharp with condemnation. “I told her she never should’ve trusted you, that you’d betray your family along with her.”

Rush’s nostrils flared subtly before he reined in his reaction. “I’m not betraying the queen.” He met my questioning stare. “I’m not betraying anyone. We’re to escort you to the dungeon.”

“Oh really,” I said. “And why would I agree to let you lock me up in the damn dungeon? It doesn’t sound like a fun place to be.”

“Oh, it’s not,” Braque piped up happily.

Rush sighed so that his shoulders visibly rose and fell. “The queen doesn’t think you’ll hurt me.” He glanced behind him at the others. “Or them.” His neck flushed, and he offered me what looked like chagrin.

I pursed my lips. Damn him. Damn her . She was right.

Jaw hard, I eked out, “I can’t let Braque go.” I tipped my head behind me. “He’ll turn whatever this magic is on me.”

“Of course I will,” Braque said, once more giddy now that he thought the tides were turning. “You won’t make it twenty steps toward the dungeons.”

“Then I should slit your throat right now.”

He stiffened, his bravado fluttering like leaves on the wind.

As if he wished he didn’t have to, Rush eventually said, “Don’t. He won’t kill you. Isn’t that right, Braque? If your life’s no longer under threat, the magic of the Fae Heir Trials won’t permit you to kill a contestant outside the parameters of the matches.”

When Braque sniffed and didn’t respond, I knew Rush was right.

“I still don’t trust him,” I said.

“Who would?” Ryder asked, but Hiroshi was the one to flick his fingers in Braque’s direction.

Once, twice, thrice—and Braque shortened by a few inches and squawked.

What the…? Was he a…? Did he now have some ... chicken parts?

Stretching my neck back to better examine him, I studied Braque’s new fowl legs. His stockings pooled around his shiny shoes, and his britches hung loosely from his usual pot belly to gape around his now spindly, knobby legs. A hard beak stretched from his nose to his chin around his otherwise normal face.

I lowered my knife but kept it at my side. “What in the dragonfire…?”

Hiroshi, his lavender hair whipping behind him in the current churning the air, shrugged. “Now you don’t have to worry about him casting any of his spells.”

“Hmmm. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Braque’s eyes were comically wide as he patted where his mouth should have been. “Quawk, quawk,” he said .

I wished I were in the mood to laugh. But too many had died today for nothing. And I had no idea how to contain the gaping hole of destruction or the queen’s seemingly endless wrath.

“We have to go,” Rush urged.

“What about this?” I gestured with my chin toward the pit, dragging the grass all the way from the edges of the dugout into its toothless jaws.

“Ivar will handle it.”

I glanced back at the slender man who was picking his way toward us with frequent looks at me. I couldn’t decide whether he was nervous about being near me now that I’d threatened his pal or whether he just wanted to wring my neck for daring to insult his precious monarch.

He bared his teeth at me.

Kill me it was, then.

“Let’s go,” I said, inching away slowly in a wide arc that would take us away from Ivar as well as the sinkhole. “I’ve had enough of today already.”

The queen’s glare was on me the entire way until we finally exited the arena. As soon as we did, I pointed us away from the palace.

I wasn’t going to allow anyone to lock me in a dungeon, not even the shockingly gorgeous fae with the moonlight eyes.

I’d skirted death already once that day. I wasn’t about to tempt destiny by giving it a second easy opportunity.