CHAPTER 36
EMONIE
Normally, I love going in a fairy ring. It’s pure magic, traveling straight through a vein of Annwyn, like drinking fresh water from the source. You can sense the magic and the connection with the land, and it makes you feel powerful and alive.
But as I get sucked through it with the Stone King, I’m not invigorated and I don’t feel powerful. Just terrified and reeling.
I watched Auren run toward me with fear and anger, but she couldn’t get to me in time. The world crumpled away, and the king kept hold of me.
It feels like we’ve been stuck in this ring for ages and it still doesn’t want to let go. Like the vein we’re traveling in is pinched. Suffocating. Trying to keep us in its fist.
My stomach roils, my head pressurizing, and all the while, Carrick’s grip is clamped down painfully on my arm, refusing to let go. I fight, trying to get out, but the logical part of me knows it’s impossible. You can’t stop it once you’re in it. The only way through is out the other side.
Finally, after who knows how long, we come to the end. My body topples over as we abruptly land. The king’s off-centering hold makes me lose my footing. My knees slam to the ground, though he still keeps my arm wrenched in his grip.
I gasp through the pain, and then immediately I notice the packed and parched ground we’ve settled on.
Where are we?
I expected to travel back to the palace where he’d throw me toward some guards and lock me up in the dungeons again.
But this isn’t anywhere near Glassworth. We aren’t even in Lydia anymore.
With shallow breaths, I take in the sight of a desolate earth that stretches further than I can see. Everything is gray and lifeless, and the ground itself feels wrong . It doesn’t feel like the rest of Annwyn.
It’s drained. Maybe that’s what was wrong with the fairy ring. The land here isn’t powerful, isn’t alive with magical connection. There’s just… nothing .
“This is the deadlands,” I say out loud to myself, my eyes gone wide as fear soaks into me, weighing me down.
My eyes instantly swing around to find the infamous Orean bridge. I’ve never actually been this far out to the end of Annwyn. Never saw the broken bridge or the ruined lands around it. Most of us consider it cursed, since the land is dead and fae near here started being born without magic.
And I’m here in it—with my knees shoved into the gray dust.
I shudder.
The king suddenly hauls me up to my feet, nearly pulling my arm right out of its socket. Hissing in pain, I try to yank out of his grip, but his hold is unrelenting.
Just like my guilt.
My mind spools, pulling in everything that just happened.
They made me use my glamour to look like Auren. Made me practice and prance around. And then they brought me up there to that stage after that mockery of a performance.
Made me bow .
I swallow the bile that comes rushing up the back of my throat. What I did up there on the stage—it feels like a betrayal.
My eyes fill with tears.
What if everyone thinks I’m a traitor? For helping the crown make a mockery out of not just Auren, but all the Turleys, and the Vulmin cause too?
What if Auren hates me for what I did? Or Wick? What will the other Vulmin think?
My parents died for this cause, and I just helped mock it.
A tear falls.
I just didn’t want them to keep hurting Auren. She’s been my first real friend. I hated watching Lord Cull break her bones while the king broke her mind.
They were threatening the Oreans too. I tried to call them on their bluff—but I lost. Watched one woman get tortured and killed because of it. I couldn’t bear to let anyone else die because of my refusal.
Maybe I should’ve fought harder. Or figured out a way to trick them.
But then they described my sister’s house in Lydia. Talked about her family, like they’d already been watching them. They threatened to hurt her and make me watch, and I couldn’t bear it. They found my breaking point.
So, I bowed.
My eyes lift, locking onto the king, and I feel my face knot up with hate. He doesn’t even spare me a glance.
As soon as I’m steady on my feet, he lets go of my arm and shoves me forward out of the fairy ring. I look over my shoulder at it, watching it already start to wither, knowing that traitor Brennur closed it up and blocked the way we came.
I’m stuck here.
Desperate unease makes my shoulders stiffen, and exhaustion suddenly pulls at me from all these weighing emotions and my magical use over the past few days.
I don’t know how Auren was able to show up, but thank the goddesses that she did. Because I just made everything worse.
When another tear drips down my face, the glamour starts dripping down too. It melts away, Auren’s coloring and features draining until my own appearance returns again.
I take in a shaky breath, looking down at my wrists and ankles still trapped in stone shackles, at the golden dress hanging more loosely on my body. Out of sight, there’s another half-circle of stone clamped around my back, the ends stopping just at my ribs. Another shackle to keep me compliant.
“Go,” the king commands with another shove.
Instead of listening, I dig in my slippered feet and glare at him. His unmalleable eyes narrow, and then he uses his magic to yank at my shackles to pull me forward.
He walks in front of me, not at all worried that I’m at his back, because he knows I can’t do anything.
Being shackled by his stone makes me furious. I stare daggers at his back as he drags me along, while his feet kick up ashy silt, giving me a face-full of dust.
My steps wobble, sweat starting to gather at my neck and forehead while the stone shackles keep tugging me forward.
As we walk, I soon see that there is some life in these deadlands after all. Or maybe it can be argued that it’s just more death—because ahead are a bunch of soldiers who look like they’re readying for battle.
This is an army camp .
There are Stone Swords everywhere. Some must’ve just arrived, because they’re still offloading supplies and marching in.
I’m really outnumbered here.
My thickening fear and my threaded guilt are going to be just two more shackles that weigh me down. If I let them, these emotions will get me killed.
I have to be strong.
No more crying. No more panicking. I’m surrounded by enemies, but I’m a damn Vulmi , and I need to prove it. To prove which side I’m on.
I’ve been spying and working for this cause since before I can remember, and although I’ve let the Vulmin down today, I’m not going to let that happen again. I just need to face this like another mission. I’ve been in countless predicaments over the years. This is just another one that I have to find my way out of, that’s all.
I can handle it. It’s fine. Completely fine .
Licking my lips, I force out a bolstering breath, while also forcing my emotions to crumple away. I’m not Auren anymore, I’m not even Emonie.
I’m a Vulmi.
As I let my demeanor solidify, I take in whatever information I can from the sights. The army camp looks hastily built. King Carrick must have had it constructed to send his soldiers down the bridge.
He kept his plans close to the chest. We knew he was preparing for something big, but we never heard about this.
As we get closer, a few soldiers start to notice our approach, and they quickly rush around. Then a male of higher rank—a Badge—comes striding out to meet the king. “Your Majesty, we were not expecting you.”
“Have all the soldiers arrived?”
“Yes, my king. The final ones just now.”
Carrick nods, looking out at the bursting camp. “Good. I need a contingent back at Lydia at once.”
The soldier looks taken aback. “Back at Lydia?”
“There’s been an insurgence, I want it taken care of immediately.”
That news makes the Badge stiffen. “I will gather troops right away. We’ll do an immediate sweep of the city.”
“No,” Carrick says. “Burn it.”
Everyone pauses. Several of the soldiers exchange glances.
“Sire?”
“I want the golden Turley female killed, and I want every single Vulmin taken out with her. Exterminate the pests. Burn the whole city to the ground.”
“But, my king, the people—”
Whatever look King Carrick gives the male instantly shuts him up.
“The vermin have been breeding within the walls of our very own capital. Do you think that’s acceptable, soldier?” he asks with growing fury.
“No, Sire.”
“It is Lydia’s fault for not weeding out this vermin threat. Purge the city with flames. Let it be a lesson to the rest of Annwyn,” Carrick seethes. “I’ll make a new capital.”
“You’ll make a whole bunch of new enemies—that’s what you’ll make,” I call out.
The king stops and slowly turns. I think he might have forgotten I was here.
He remembers now.
When I see the look of terrifying anger on his face, my stomach does a flip. I wish I could stuff those words right back into my mouth, but there they are, undercooked in the brain and spewed out still raw.
I lock my shoulders back, keeping my head up. Carrick doesn’t like that. Doesn’t like things that he considers beneath him to look him in the eye.
When he faces me, I notice that the rest of the soldiers in the camp have all gone quiet. Every one of them watching. He wants to make a spectacle of me. Probably because Auren made a spectacle out of him .
That thought makes me smile a little.
The second he sees the corners of my mouth twitch, he takes me down to the ground. The stone bands pin my arms against the ashy dirt, the clamp around my spine crippling me into a bow.
Just like he made me bow on the stage in front of the entire city. Except this time, I’m wearing my own appearance and there are no Vulmin or Auren. I’m on my own.
I turn my head so I’m not face-first in the silt.
“She can be the first in the pyre. Take her back to Lydia tomorrow. Whipped and bared for all to see.”
Anger stretches through every inch of my insides. It only worsens the ache in my legs with how uncomfortably I’m folded over on top of them.
“It will be done, Sire,” I hear the Badge tell him.
It will definitely not be done, but I won’t argue with him about it. I just need to get away. Simple.
I shove past my knotting nerves.
“I’ll be going with the Lydia contingent to see the Turley female killed,” Carrick says. “We will postpone the charge of the second wave until Annwyn is brought to heel. In the meantime—”
The king’s words are cut off at a sudden disturbance ahead. There’s shouting and running, enough of a distraction that the king’s hold on my cuffs releases.
I sit up, watching as the king and the soldiers with him start striding over to see what’s happening. I’m hauled to my feet by another soldier, his hand locked on my forearm as he begins to pull me forward.
We cross the dusty yard of the camp, coming to a spot where rows of soldiers have stopped to circle around. The king goes right up to the front of the crowd, but I’m yanked to a stop at the back, which is disappointing, because my curiosity is piqued. I want to know what’s going on too.
My guard shoves me down to the ground, and it sends a spike of pain to my poor knees. I shoot the soldier a glare over my shoulder but swallow down my curse. When I turn back around, all I see are the legs of the soldiers in front of me, but actually…
I squat further down, lean a bit to the right, and—there. I’d like to give the guard a sneering look of victory since I can see better down here anyway, but I can’t. I’m too busy staring at the soldier on the ground.
He looks…awful. Something is terribly wrong with him. The veins on his face are black, and his mouth looks sunken in. I’m not sure he has all his teeth. The camp has gone deathly quiet as they watch him. He’s so covered in the silty dust of the ground it looks like he might’ve crawled his way here.
There are a couple of soldiers next to him propping him up, and his eyes, when they roll up to look at the king, look shrunken. Chills travel down my back, and I can’t help but wince at the sight of him.
“What happened?” the king demands.
I strain to listen, pushing my head nearly between the legs of the soldier in front of me, but I can’t hear the fae’s reply. I see his recessed mouth move, though, and the soldier holding him up tips his head to listen and then repeats his words. “He says he was on the other side, Sire. Says they were attacked. Everyone killed. He crawled back across the bridge to warn us.”
“Attacked?” the king says in disbelief. “An Orean army attacked us, and he’s the only one who survived?”
The soldier shakes his head, mouth moving again. The other male’s eyes widen at what he hears, and then he looks back up at the king to repeat it. “He says not an army. Just one male.”
“ One male took out hundreds of troops?”
The veined fae nods. When he opens his mouth this time, something seems wrong. His eyes go wide, knobby fingers scrabbling for the soldier. Before he can say anything else, he lets out a terrible sound, like tearing paper, except, I think it might be coming from inside his chest.
Then he falls back, unmoving, unblinking, sunken face pointed up at the sky.
I shudder, cringing away.
“Burn him,” the king orders, not even three seconds after the poor male died. “He might have something catching.”
I’m not a Carrick expert or anything, but him demanding to burn so many people in such a short amount of time seems quite excessive.
Which is good. Not the burning people part, but the excessive part. Because it tells me one thing.
He’s scared.
You’d never be able to tell under his stony exterior— ha . But males like him don’t like weaknesses. Don’t like to feel like they’ve suffered a loss. And Auren showing up and destroying his public spectacle has gotten under his skin. The fact that he fled instead of staying to fight also tells me that he didn’t think he was going to win against her.
Now, he’s got problems on both sides of the bridge.
I’m thrilled.
A smile spreads across my face as my guard yanks me back up again while the rest of the soldiers start to disperse. I’m dragged toward a prisoner cart. There’s a Stone Sword leaning against the wheel, talking to two others.
“Jailer,” my guard says before tossing me in the direction of the fae who looks over. I slam into him. “Lock her up. The king wants her taken to Lydia. She’s to be burned in the city. Made an example of.”
The jailer nods, wrenching me by the arm as he starts hauling me toward the end of the cart. He takes a key from his belt and unlocks it. I try to yank my arm away, but he has a solid grip.
Reaching up, I pull at his hair and claw at his face, but he only wrenches open the cart door and shoves me inside. I land in a painful sprawl, unable to get up before he closes it and locks me inside.
He and the others walk away, but I spin around and search the cart. It would be nice if I could find a sword laying around to stab someone with, but there’s not even a splinter sticking up.
I grind my teeth with frustration and curl my hands around the metal bars to look around. At least the cart isn’t hitched to any horses yet. It’s also empty, so I have the place to myself. When I spot Carrick again, I move to the end of the cart to see him better.
He looks furious.
“Where are Fassa and Friano?”
“Here, my king!”
A couple of males hurry over from across the camp. Both have long black hair and identical faces. They’re the only ones around not in Stone Sword uniforms.
“Get in here now!” the king shouts before he storms into one of the buildings.
The twins and a few of the higher ranking Badges follow him in, the door slamming shut behind them.
I let out a tense breath and sit back, my attention shifting to the soldier who just died. A couple of other Stone Swords have wrapped him in sheets. They lift him up and start to carry him away.
Both males are doing their very best not to touch the body, even wrapped up. I can’t help but feel sorry for the poor dead fae. He crawled all the way here to warn them, and this is the thanks he gets.
Though, if he is truly contagious like the king mentioned, maybe Carrick will die a horrible, veiny death in his sleep tonight. I cross my fingers in my lap. May the goddesses bless us all.
My sore body slumps, and I crawl to the back of the cart and lean against the wall with a sigh. I pull at my dress, making sure I’m covered up as much as I can be in this swathe of golden fabric. Though I can’t get comfortable or take in a nice deep breath—not with this stone around my middle. But I rest my eyes anyway, because I’m exhausted.
I fall asleep still crossing my fingers.