Chapter 10
Long, sharp-thorned brambles trailed through the hedges on each side of the narrow path like clawed and questing fingers.
Lorelei gave them an indulgent smile and then dismissed them with a flick of her hand.
They curled swiftly out of the way, leaving her to walk freely, all her senses alive to the night around her.
The whisper-soft sounds that followed behind a moment later made her wince, as those same brambles scraped audibly against her human partner. At least the Golden Beacon was no longer half-naked; surely thorns couldn’t damage his skin too badly now that he was fully dressed.
It had been a mingled disappointment and relief when his lost shirt and belt had been replaced by that helpful vendor after their first challenge.
Unfortunately, his new top was a silky red tunic that emphasized his absurdly broad shoulders and looked far too soft and touchable for Lorelei’s liking.
He should have appeared ridiculous with that vivid, dramatic fae tunic clasped into place over the plain blue woolen trousers of a stodgy Imperial officer.
Instead, the snarling silver fox head of his belt buckle accentuated the uncomfortable truth:
High General Gerard de Moireul looked even better when he finally let himself go a little wild.
Sylvana save me! Lorelei bit back a wistful sigh. No seductions allowed.
He might have shown himself to be a better man than she would have admitted a few days ago, but Lorelei only played her games with safe men nowadays.
From dreamy opera composers to self-important counts and princes, she traded pleasure with ease but never trusted any of them with anything that mattered.
Gerard de Moireul—far more principled, more intelligent, and more damnably compelling than any of her past lovers—was the epitome of unsafe.
Even if he did ever experience a change of heart when it came to his appalling political allegiance, the man would be gods-driven in everything he did.
Whenever he finally let down his iron shields, he would commit with ferocious intensity to his chosen partner—and she would end up revealing everything to him.
So Lorelei shifted her focus from the tantalizing challenge close behind her to the lethal challenge surrounding them both.
They had escaped the first stage of this trial without setting off the lurking menace that they’d both sensed, but they still hadn’t discovered their ultimate goal.
So far, she hadn’t even glimpsed any helpful hints …
and as she turned a corner of the winding path, she found herself at a branching fork with both paths leading into pitch darkness.
Of course it had to be a maze. Nothing in this tournament would ever be easy—and apparently, they’d be navigating this part without any light to guide them. Fortunately, Lorelei had always had her own ways of orienting herself in Efaelen.
Tipping her head back, she gazed up at the constellations forming high overhead, where the purple of late twilight had shifted into full black.
She’d learned the names of all those stars when she was a child, along with the epic stories of how each of their formations had come to be; by the time she was five, she’d known how to find the ones that would lead her safely home at this time of year.
Unfortunately, as she gazed upwards now with mounting confusion, she realized that everything looked wrong—jumbled up, unfamiliar—and her heart gave a sickening lurch of panic. Was Oberon right about her after all? Had she really spent so many years away that she’d forgotten her first sky?
The cool breeze that rippled through the hedge path seemed to pass directly through her bones, as if she’d gone hollow.
Then Gerard stepped up to join her, and the tingling warmth of his body looming behind her brought her back to herself with a start.
Regardless of any secret failures, she was still on stage—and damn it, she was the infamous Fae Queen of Balravia.
A thousand vicious gossips and a hundred songs and plays had already tried and failed to drag her down.
She would not fall apart now in front of her partner—prisoner—or their unseen watchers in the stands.
Wouldn’t Oberon love to see me crumple?
Lorelei arranged her face into bright interest as she turned and gestured questioningly between the branching paths.
The Golden Beacon was famously, inexorably methodical in all he did—and he had been the first to spot that camouflaged fae portal in the first part of this challenge.
In this single, particular context, Lorelei could bear to let him take the lead …
at least until she’d sorted out her malfunctioning memories and wasn’t feeling so unforgivably weak anymore.
He looked over her head from one side to another, his shadowed eyes narrowing.
No sounds emanated from either direction except the quiet, steady rustling of the breeze through the thick hedges …
and the underlying, heavy silence of this challenge’s mysterious guardian, still listening and lying in wait for anyone careless enough to speak aloud.
Still frowning thoughtfully, Gerard took hold of one of the nearest hedge branches—and Lorelei realized with sudden horror what he meant to do.
Biting back a cry, she flung herself forward and wrapped both of her hands around his big fingers where they rested in the branches, poised to rip and break.
No greenery here could be harmed without terrible consequences!
She shook her head frantically—and he nodded in acceptance, his fingers loosening beneath hers.
Her whole body sagged in relief … until she realized, a moment later, that she was still holding his left hand in both of hers, no longer in the firm grip of a captor but in a near-cuddle, her thumbs stroking thoughtlessly along the lightly haired back of his hand.
It felt so strong and so deeply appealing, his warm skin tingling against hers, trying to draw her even closer—
Not your toy, Lorelei! Let the nice man go. With a grimace she couldn’t quite repress, she dropped his hand and hastily stepped backwards, brushing her palms against her gown to wipe away that moment of temptation.
Still, it hadn’t been for naught. He’d had a good idea, when it came down to essentials. All she needed to do, to enact it without any unnecessary risk, was … aha.
She had been clever after all to ferret away those two acorns in her bodice, back in that dark forest!
She’d taken them with the vague idea of planting them later—most of those trees had been real, and she wouldn’t mind a twisting dark oak or two to lend atmosphere to her palace gardens—but just now, she had a far more pressing need for bait.
And what would be the point of having a partner famous for his physical prowess if she didn’t give him a chance to show off? Scooping out the hoarded acorns with a quick shimmy and rearrangement of her bosom, she presented them to Gerard with a cheerful grin and wink, ready to be entertained.
For a long moment, he did nothing but study the offerings on her palm in the growing darkness, his face tightening as if in pain.
Finally, he took a deep breath—which did astonishing things to his broad chest, she couldn’t help but note—and took the acorns from her, his rough fingertips brushing lightly against her palm.
Goddess help me. Lorelei bit down hard on her lower lip and stepped out of his way, giving him space to throw.
It wasn’t a retreat.
He tossed the first acorn to the left, into that impermeable blackness. Lorelei held her breath as she listened for its landing.
No sound emerged. After a long moment, they traded a glance and then turned to face the right-hand path. Gerard tossed the second acorn in a smooth, underarm swing …
And a roar of rage sounded from that second darkness, emerging from the beast who’d hidden there.
They moved in tandem, with no need for any signals.
Lorelei lunged down the left-hand path with Gerard close behind.
This path was broad enough for them to run side by side, but as pitch blackness fell over them, Lorelei took the lead without question, her senses sharper than those of any full human.
She could feel the tall hedges growing on each side, knew where to turn and when to stop before she ran into a sudden green, growing barrier that screamed, to her heightened awareness, a warning of poison.
She grabbed Gerard’s hand just in time to hold him back, and his fingers closed firmly around hers as he let her lead him away from the waiting danger.
In the distance, through the darkness, Lorelei could hear more noises now—the unmistakable sounds of fumbling movement.
Were their competitors lost along with them in this maze?
The others must have found their way here from their own separate sections of the shared trial—which meant that whoever found the maze’s center first would win the entire challenge.
Lorelei felt Gerard’s fingers tighten around hers with the same realization—and determination—and she bit back a laugh of intoxicated delight. Did anyone else really imagine they could beat Balravia’s Fae Queen and the Empire’s Golden Beacon, working together at long last?
Keeping his hand safely in hers, she nearly flew down the next path, light and free in the utter darkness. She did still belong here after all! Princess or not, this land was still hers, she could feel it in her bones …
And then bright moonlight splashed, sudden and unwelcome, over them both as they arrived at a final turning with six different branching paths.
Six paths? Really?
Blinking and dazed by moonlight, she turned in place to study their options. All of them were identical to her vision and to every other sense—and above them, that same damnably mismatched jumble of stars embroidered the sky once again, like a taunt meant to puncture all her confidence.