Sneak Peek The Realm That Falls to Her
BLURB
Torn between two realms, the fate of a kingdom and my father hang in the balance…
I need my mate—a darkly dangerous fae prince—more than ever.
And he needs me to help claim his throne.
But Ruskin is gone.
Disappeared into a place most dare not speak of.
There isn’t time to mourn.
In the human realm, a cruel king holds my father captive.
While in the fae realm, Ruskin’s mother, Evanthe, is determined to use her corrupted magic to wreak havoc on the Seelie Court.
Suddenly, something is changing in me.
And I’m afraid that as my powers become more fae, I’ll become just as cruel and violent as the worst of them.
Especially when a terrifying new prophecy comes to light.
Ruskin and I might not be the ones to save the fae…but the ones destined to destroy them.
Get your copy of The Realm That Falls to Her
Available November 6th, 2024
EXCERPT
Chapter One
“Get down, now.”
I slam my knees against the muddy earth, pulling Destan with me, as several Seelie fae ride into view. Crouched behind the rocks of the trail, my legs burn from running and my head thumps to the frantic rhythm of my heartbeat. I need to rest and regroup, but we can’t stop for long. Damp seeps through my skirts, and I watch a centipede wind its way through the crevices of the boulders while I strain my ears to listen.
The rapid beat of hoofs rumbles up to us, and I peer through the stones. Our pursuers are galloping along the trail twenty or so feet below, moving much faster than we can on foot.
The Wild Hunt, with their huge, Calasian steeds and taste for blood sport. I thought I’d seen the last of them when I killed Cebba, but thanks to Evanthe they’re back. It would be very nice if one of these days they were hunting something other than me.
“Okay,” Destan murmurs to me as he peers over my shoulder. “They’ve gone further down the pass, let’s move.”
Now that we’re more confident they won’t spot us, we return to scrabbling on up the steep trail. We’re not too far from the border with the Unseelie Kingdom as I remember it, and if we can get that far, the Hunt are unlikely to follow.
“Come on Eleanor, you’re going to have to move faster than that,” Destan urges.
I glare at him, but don’t have breath to spare for a clever retort. We’re both sweaty and panting with the effort of outrunning them, but for all his fussiness, I’m being firmly reminded that Destan is fae, and therefore faster, stronger, and more resilient than me. His long legs carry him nimbly up the path, as I push myself onwards, trying to match his pace with gritted teeth.
“This doesn’t look like the way I came before,” I say, glancing over the uneven track, punctuated with jagged rock as the path travels further up into the peaks ahead of us. “Maybe this trail will be harder for the horses? We could still stay ahead of them.”
Destan’s face twists with doubt, and I know I’m grasping, but it’s the best hope my brain can come up with in this moment. Panic nips at the edge of my reason, and I’m starting to feel every bit like the prey animal the Hunt see me as – desperate with fear. We’ve been running ever since Evanthe found us at Irnua, since Ruskin…
I gulp back my rising dread at my last memory of Ruskin: a flash of magic, an explosion of dark water and then—gone. Snatched from existence as if he and Evanthe had never been there.
Not the last memory, I tell myself firmly, because entertaining the alternative would break me. You willsee him again. You will find him.
Not yet, though. He took on Evanthe to buy us time, to give me a chance to get away, and I won’t make his efforts meaningless by getting caught now. I can’t help him if I’m dead. The whinny of horses grows louder and Destan doubles back, leaning over an overhanging rock to try to catch sight of exactly how close the Hunt are.
A whizz of metal zips through air and he staggers back, hitting the ground. As he sits there, looking dazed, I stare at the shaft of wood protruding out the back of his arm, tipped with a bronze arrowhead pink with shredded skin and blood.
“Destan!” I drop down beside him, examining the wound. From the way it’s pierced straight through I think it’s only hit flesh and muscle. But I don’t want to move it until I’m sure.
The hoofbeats grow ever nearer, and my panic spikes. There’s no time. There’s just no time.
Destan looks at me with the slightly glazed look of someone battling waves of pain.
“We can’t outrun them, Eleanor,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
My mind whirls, picking up ideas and throwing them aside. I try to block out the noise of the Hunt, the trail of blood running down Destan’s arm, and the internal scream I’m holding back whenever I think of Ruskin.
“Then we’ll just have to take them out,” I say, starting to help Destan up by hooking a shoulder under his good arm and heaving until my knees groan.
“Not that I’m not a supportive friend and all,” Destan rasps, wincing at each movement, “but even with your endlessly unique powers, there’s too many of them, and with me injured?—”
“We’ll separate them out. Come on, we need to get up there.”
I point to a rocky outcrop to the side of the trail that doesn’t go anywhere, half buried in a long-settled landslide.
“We’re going to hide up here?” Destan says, disbelieving.
“We’re going to lay a trap.”
The Hunt have been tracking our footprints, which are all too visible in the soft mud of the trail. I scuff out where they show us leaving the track and then deposit Destan up behind the outcrop. It’s perfect. By sitting flat against the back of it you can peer around down to the trail while remaining barely visible.
“Won’t they wonder where we went?” he asks, releasing a groan as I lower him down to the ground.
“That’s the point,” I say, wedging myself in beside him.
The Hunt’s voices drift up to us from the trail, and then they’re there right below us. Half a dozen angry High Fae gripping weapons, and looking for the woman they think is trying to overthrow their High Queen. I wonder if they’d be quick in slitting our throats, or if they’d want to play with us first. Lord Hadeus is in the back, his blond hair easy to spot among the group.
Good, I think. He’s Evanthe’s right-hand man in all this. It will make what I’m about to do useful in more ways than one.
The Hunt slows as our tracks peter out, stopping for a moment to consult. I get to work before they can turn their attention to our hiding spot, reaching for my magic where it waits withing me – a rippling pool of energy I’ve learned to harness. To aim.
It’s trickier at a distance, but I’m close enough to sense the vague shape of the various bits of metal on them. Their weapons are tightly clasped in their hands – I’d only be able to disarm them one by one, not fast enough to keep the element of surprise, but I have other tricks up my sleeve.
I concentrate on the feet of the Calasian horses, channeling my magic into the beaten arches of their bronze horseshoes, beginning to heat them up—slowly.
The horses stamp and paw at the ground, but the Hunt just tugs at their reins, trying to settle them. I keep feeding my magic into the horseshoes, raising the metal’s temperature bit by bit. The horses whinny. A couple trot forward a few steps, restless.
“What are you doing, silly animal?” one of the riders near the fronts tuts.
I release a final push of magic, making the metal so fiery hot the heat burns through the horn of their hooves, singing the flesh underneath. The horses release a terrible shriek, and set off running, convinced they can outpace the pain. Their riders are powerless to stop them, the Hunt disappearing down the trail on top of their bolting horses, shouting and frantically trying to steer them.
All except one.
Hadeus’s horse rears nervously, unsure what startled its companions, but as it lifts its feet its horse shoes fall to the ground with a series of thuds, loosened by my power.
Hadeus looks around, suspicious. But as I’d hoped, he seems to assume the rest of the Hunt are the ones under attack, and he, on the only horse that hasn’t bolted, is safe. He dismounts, sheathing his sword and bending down to examine the fallen shoes.
When he turns, the sword that was strapped to his thigh a moment before is pointed at his throat.
As it hovers there, I clamber down from our hiding spot, keeping a firm hold on the blade with my magic. Hadeus’s expression sours at the sight of me. His lip curls further when Destan joins me, my friend’s breath shallow from the arrow still lodged in his arm.
“What a sorry sight you are,” Hadeus mocks. “I’m almost embarrassed we didn’t catch you sooner.”
“And yet here we are,” I say with false brightness, “with all your friends gone and you at a bit of a disadvantage.”
Hadeus eyes the sword hovering in front of him, the steely tip glinting inches from his body. I don’t know what specific magical talents he has—they vary from fae to fae—but I guess it’s not anything that can help him here. It looks to me like he’s wondering if he can grab the sword from the air with his bare hands before I’m able to move it with my magic.
“Try it,” I warn. “We’ll find out who’s faster.”
He glares at me, but stays still.
“Now we have you all alone Hadeus, I think you can answer a few questions for us,” Destan grunts. I glance at him – we didn’t have time to discuss it, but I’d been thinking the same. We need to find Ruskin, and Hadeus and the rest of Evanthe’s followers were much closer to the fight than we were when they vanished. Maybe Evanthe planned their disappearance in advance. If that’s the case, I’d expect Hadeus to know exactly where they are. Even if it wasn’t planned, he probably has more information than we do. At the very least, he had a better view.
Hadeus just sneers. “I don’t think so. There are limits to what even an abomination like you can do,” he nods at me. “And soon my friends will have shaken off your nuisance magic and will be back biting at your heels.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I say triumphantly. “Because now we have a horse.”
Having a steed will give us the head start we need, enough for the Hunt to lose our trail and have to work to find it again.
We bind Hadeus with chains I hastily make from repurposed metal and reattach the horse’s shoes. I thank fate that the Calasian horses are more than large enough to carry Destan, me, and a prone Hadeus slung over the back like a sack of potatoes.
The noise of us rushing to prep the horse masks the approaching footsteps at first, but then a rock skitters across the track and Destan and I freeze. I nod at him, indicating he should stay with Hadeus and the horse—his injury means he’s not up to much fighting right now anyway—and move behind a boulder on the edge of the trail.
A member of the Wild Hunt—a male I recognize from Cebba’s labyrinth—comes cresting over the top of the path. He’s on foot and he has an arrow knocked in his drawn bow. He points it straight at Destan, but shouts towards my hiding place.
“Come out now, Gold Weaver, or your friend gets another arrow in him.”
I stand slowly, my hands raised, and the Wild Hunt member smiles, redirecting his aim at me.
“Don’t worry, Lords Hadeus,” he begins. “The others are rallying the horses now. They’ll be?—”
Hadeus’s sword, which I’d been carefully directing behind the fae’s turned back, comes up behind him. I could use the hilt to knock him unconscious…but who knows how long he’d be out? I can’t risk it. Not with my life and Destan’s on the line. Directed by my magic, the sword runs the fae through. He drops like a ton of bricks, but also releases the arrow, which I have to dodge as it goes whizzing by.
“I did think it was a bit of a useless hiding place,” Destan says when I return to the horse.
“Better he was looking for me and not the weapon,” I say grimly.
“We have to hurry. He said they’re already gathering the horses again and we’ll need as much of a head start as we can get.”
We jettison anything from the horse’s packs that aren’t essential—pretty much everything except the food and water in the saddlebags—so the extra weight won’t slow us down. We also leave the muddy trail behind, which is now possible since we have the Calasian. The beasts are surprisingly nimble-footed given their size. We pick our way down through the rocks and uneven earth that take us away from the mountain. On this path, we’ll be harder to track, but I keep looking nervously over my shoulder, making sure the Hunt haven’t returned as Hadeus promised.
Once we’re on level ground again Destan nudges the horse into a gallop, and I close my eyes and try not to fall as we put our new steed to good use, putting as much distance between us and the Hunt as possible before the sun starts to set.
“We’ll keep going east,” Destan says when we finally stop at twilight in a meadow with some overhead shelter from the trees. “If we go around the base of the mountain range, I’m pretty sure there’s a route to the Unseelie border.”
“Pretty sure?”
“I remember it off some maps from my classes as a boy,” he admits. “But it’s the best option we’ve—owww.” He sucks in air through his teeth as he accidently jostles the arrow.
“Let’s take care of that,” I say. We leave Hadeus where he is, tied up and gagged, while we settle on a fallen tree trunk and I carefully set about removing the arrow – to much cursing from Destan. I then find some familiar looking plants to concoct a makeshift poultice and bind Destan’s arm, before securing it in a pretty decent sling for something made out of petticoat lining.
“There we go. How does that feel?”
“The color totally washes me out, but I suppose it will do.”
I give Destan a weak smile, but my heart isn’t in it. Now when we’ve got a moment of quiet, I can allow myself the thoughts I’ve kept at bay until now—the unspoken fears about a certain fae prince. The final image of his face – fierce and beautiful as he fought Evanthe – is tattooed across my mind, perfectly preserved like I’ll need to hold on to it, to remember, just in case.
But no, he has to be alive. I’d know if he wasn’t, wouldn’t I? We’re naminai, fated soul mates. I’d feel it through our bond if he was truly gone.
The bond.
I’ve gotten almost used to it, humming away in the background of my magic, and I’m annoyed with myself that it hadn’t occurred to me to reach for it before now. As Destan rises to check on Hadeus, I close my eyes, searching out the thread of connection that ties me to Ruskin.
I gasp as the pain hits me, a bruising battering ram of it, stamping on my nerve endings and clawing at the inside of my mind.
“Eleanor, what’s wrong?” Des asks, his voice sounding far away.
Ruskin’s fighting something, and maybe winning, I think. Still, the battle is a brutal one.
But he’s alive. That much I can feel. Not emptiness or absence, but a raw, vivid presence on the other end of the link.
I’m coming to find you, I promise him, trying to send some sense of reassurance through the bond. I don’t know if he receives it, but it can’t hurt. I send my magic too, sharing a portion of it with him in the hope it will bring him strength…but I can’t help but feel it’s like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it into the vast sea. Who knows if it will reach him? Or if it will be enough to help?
I open my eyes, the pain of the connection dulling a little, but still making my body ache. I refuse to pull back from it though. I’ll keep it here, in the background, no matter how uncomfortable it is. As long as I can still feel Ruskin through it, I don’t care.
I see Destan’s concerned face staring back at me.
“He’s alive,” I breathe. “I can feel it, but he’s running out of time.”
The concerned expression deepens.
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh,” I say. “Ruskin and I, we’re naminai.”
He blinks like I’ve just sprouted a second head.
“B-but that’s not possible,” he stutters. “You’re human and…”
“And I have a true name.”
Destan’s eyes narrow. “That’s why you were asking me about naminai a few weeks ago, wasn’t it? You sneaky?—”
“Des,” I say, jerking my head towards Hadeus. “We need to find out what he knows. Right now.”
He looks like he’s going to argue, then just shakes his head. “Fine. But we are so talking about this later.”
He goes to shove Hadeus off the back of the horse so he hits the ground with a thud, then with one hand he seizes Hadeus’ shirt and drags him over to me, propping him up against the tree trunk. I search around for my sword, but Destan holds up a hand.
“Allow me.”
He pulls a delicate knife from his belt, spinning it around the back of his palm and catching the blade. The movement is so smooth I barely catch it.
He notices my stare.
“Halima isn’t—” His breath catches for a second, but then he continues, his voice so smooth that I barely hear the break in it. “—wasn’t the only one who knew her way around a blade. I just prefer something with a little more finesse.”
We both stop for a moment, remembering our friend. I blink several times, fighting back a tear. There’ll be time to mourn her, but not now.
Destan’s eyes fall on Hadeus, and his face constricts with anger.
“You,” he says, roughly pulling the gag down from Hadeus’ mouth, and slicing open his shirt. He pulls off the chainmail protection Hadeus is wearing underneath and rests the tip of his knife on the ridge of Hadeus’s clavicle.
“Where did Evanthe take Prince Ruskin?” Destan says. All trace of the playful, lighthearted Destan I know is gone.
“That’s High Queen Evanthe to you, you pathetic whelp,” Hadeus snarls.
“Sorry, not the answer I was looking for,” Destan says mildly, and presses the tip of the knife into Hadeus’s flesh, drawing a thin line down across the ridge of his bone.
The fae lord screams loud enough to startle the birds from the trees.
I’m staring at Destan again. He glances over to meet my eye, just for a second—checking to see if I’m going to stop him.
I don’t.
He turns back to Hadeus and twirls his knife.
“Now, I don’t know if you’re aware, Eleanor, but the area around the collar bone is actually a very sensitive part of the fae body. I understand that several very important nerve clusters run right over it, making any injury there excruciating for the victim.” He applies another swift cut to the flesh above the bone and Hadeus moans, sweat beading on his brow. “Lord Swallowtail may already be aware of this, but it’s probably worth reminding him that if he doesn’t start talking soon, I’ll be forced to demonstrate.”
I’m interrupted from wondering how Destan knows all this when Hadeus spits in his face.
“Very well,” Destan says, digging his knife into Hadeus’s flesh once more. He goes deeper this time, releasing a trail of blood down Hadeus’s chest. Hadeus’s cry is guttural, and he writhes against the ground, but can’t free the hands bound beneath him.
“Who knows, we might get down to the bone at this rate. Would you like to see the color of your own bones, Lord Swallowtail?”
“Stop,” he moans. “No.”
“Then tell us where Evanthe and the prince went.”
“I don’t know,” Hadeus wails. “It wasn’t planned. One minute they were fighting and then?—”
He clams up, as if only now realizing he has information that might be useful to us. Destan sighs.
“And we were just getting somewhere.” He raises the knife, but my hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist.
“Wait.”
Destan looks at me, curious. I want to find out where Ruskin is as much as he does, but this doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. Maybe a new approach would be more effective. I have no interest in watching Hadeus suffer for the sake of it, no matter how conniving he might be. I might not be as squeamish as I once was, but I take no pleasure in torture.
“Listen, Hadeus,” I say, trying to catch the squirming man’s eyes to ensure he’s listening. “Evanthe isn’t on your side. She isn’t on anyone’s other than her own. She thinks the Seelie Court is a cesspool of greed and vanity that deserves to be punished. And do you know how she’s going to do that?”
Hadeus starts to say something but Destan cuts him of with wave of his knife.
“Have some manners and let her talk,” he says.
“She’ll do it with all the iron she’s been polluting the Court with the last few weeks,” I continue, putting every ounce of sincerity I can into my tone. “She’s behind the attacks, she’s the one who’s been killing off the Seelie, and she’ll do the same thing to the whole Kingdom if you give her the chance.”
I stare into Hadeus’s eyes, urging him to believe me, or at least show some glimmer of doubt – a willingness to entertain the possibility he might have backed the wrong horse.
But all I see there is blind rage and hate.
“Lies,” Hadeus bites out. “That’s all your kind ever have to offer. Disgusting, duplicitous creatures.”
“Can I skewer him now?” Destan asks.
“Don’t you see?” I say, desperate for Hadeus to come to his senses. “She’s getting you to tie your own noose to hang yourselves with. The more you help her, the closer you are to destroying everything you care about.”
“I hope she kills your precious prince, you two-faced whore.”
Destan drags his knife over Hadeus’s skin, slicing deep enough that I’m surprised he doesn’t flay him down to the bone.
Hadeus loses all composure. The scream that leaves his lungs rattles my ear drums long after it’s ended. It’s awful, and I study Destan’s grim face with a fresh view of him. I don’t want to watch the scene play out, but it seems hypocritical to turn away and let Destan do the dirty work. He works Hadeus over for ten more minutes, nicking and slicing, until the blond fae cannot stand it any longer.
“Alright,” Hadeus begs when he finds his breath again, his arrogance leeched from him by Destan’s blade. “Alright, I’ll tell you what I know, but please no more.” His words are labored, slurred with pain. Destan and I eagerly wait for him to go on.
“They were fighting. The usurper had tried to bind the High Queen, but she freed herself with a powerful spell—I could feel it in the air—just as Prince Ruskin tried to open a portal in the lake. I believe he was going to pull her through it.”
Hadeus coughs, the pain he’s in making his eyes water until a tear runs down the side of his face.
“And?” Destan prompts.
He takes a deep breath, every word clearly costing him effort.
“Then something happened to the water. It collapsed in on itself, becoming like a kind of black pit. No sunlight could touch it. They went through it, but after that, I do not know. There was too much smoke, and when it cleared, the High Queen was lost to us too.”
Hadeus’s eyes roll back, and his face slackens. He’s passed out, the pain too much for him.
I concentrate on what he said, trying to make sense of it. Ruskin did once explain that water portals were less stable than the permanent gates that took you from realm to realm, but that doesn’t give us any idea of where they ended up.
Yet when I look up I see that Destan’s eyes are wide and his face is pale. Hadeus’s description meant something to him, I know it.
“What is it?” I say. My heartrate quickens. Whatever it is, I know from his reaction it can’t be good. “Des, tell me,” I demand. “Where has he gone?”
Destan swallows.
“I think…I think he’s trapped in Interra.”
Available November 6th, 2024