Chapter 47 Unless.
UNLESS . . .
SAERIS
I DIDN’T HAVE a choice.
Edina’s message had told me exactly where I could find my mate and had given me the tools to save, him, too.
What it hadn’t given me was the means to reach him in time.
That part, she had said, was up to me. So I’d done what I’d had to.
A full year with the Hazrax looking over my shoulder, in exchange for a one-way ticket to the Wicker Wood.
I’d held the page bearing Edina’s instructions as tightly as I could in my hands when the Hazrax had told me to brace myself, but three seconds later, when I awoke on my back in the snow, it was no longer there.
It didn’t matter. The information I needed was seared into my memory now.
The chances of forgetting what I’d read were absolute zero.
Fog billowed on my breath. Overhead, the bare branches of the trees scraped at the night sky like twisted fingers.
The sky was clear for once, and the stars stippled the heavens in a breathtaking display.
The Hazrax’s robed form appeared suddenly in my field of vision, making me jump.
Its eyes shone reflectively in the dark, as if they were brushed with silver.
I waited for it to make some kind of cryptic remark, or at least tell me to hurry, but it said nothing. I got to my feet. “Well, since you seem to know so much about all of this, which way do I need to go?”
The Hazrax didn’t make a peep.
I shivered against the cold as I got to my feet and brushed myself off. “Seriously? Now? After all the interfering, you’re going back to watching?”
The creature just looked at me. I took its silence as a very annoying yes. “All right. Fine. I don’t need you anyway.”
I didn’t. I could feel Fisher now. In a roundabout way.
What I could actually feel was the tiny thread of quicksilver that was still trapped in his eye.
It was a negligible amount—barely enough to be worth mentioning.
Before I’d sealed my quicksilver rune, I probably wouldn’t have been able to sense it.
Now, that tiny sliver of metal stood out like a flickering flame in a sea of darkness.
He was here, and I was going to find him.
The Hazrax floated an inch above the ground, gliding along behind me as I set off into the woods.
It cut a ghostly figure as we hurried through the trees .
. . but no more ghostly than the shades themselves.
Fisher had told me about them the last time I’d found myself in this wretched wood: the souls of the damned, condemned to haunt these woods, constantly reliving their gruesome deaths as punishment for their crimes.
Fisher had offered to give me the Sight, so I could see the shades for myself.
I had not-so-politely declined. But I was Fae now.
I had the Sight whether I wanted it or not, and the visions that stalked me as I ran through the trees were downright horrific.
A female in a tattered gown, dragging a dead infant behind her through the snow.
A mutilated male, screaming and on fire as he sprinted across the pathway up ahead.
Another male with chains wrapped around his body and attached to a large, transparent boulder, who thrashed and writhed, head tipped back as he seemingly drowned, and drowned, and drowned . . .
Everywhere I looked, the souls of the dead endured their torment on a loop. They howled and cried, the sound sending convulsions of dread up and down my spine.
Fisher was here. From his appearance back in the dreamscape of Cahlish, he was suffering along with the dead. Alive for now, at least, but why? And how?
I’d only been running through the forest for five minutes before I stumbled into a campsite. No fire. No smoke. There had been nothing to warn me of the group of warriors, lurking in the dark up ahead. I didn’t see them until it was too late.
Five? Eight? I scrambled to count, but they were already moving, drawing bows and reaching for blades.
Ten warriors at least.
No words were exchanged.
The carnage commenced.
I’d had my short swords back in the camp with Danya. I hadn’t had them in the dreamscape. Mercifully, they were at my hips now. I didn’t know how the Hazrax had done it, but it had transported my physical body from Inishtar, weapons and all.
Thanking the gods and all four winds, I drew my weapons and prepared to fight like hell.
The first male to my left came for me. His blade cut through the air, whistling close to my ear, but didn’t find its target. I ducked, shoving the metal in the blade away with my mind, and was met with immediate resistance.
Fucking null blade.
They all had them. The unnatural weapons felt like blind spots in my vision—black holes, sucking at my energy and the magic of the woods itself.
I couldn’t manipulate them. Couldn’t shove them away like I might have been able to with a normal sword or dagger.
Just as I had back in Ammontraíeth’s sepulcher, I was going to have to fight these fuckers the normal way, without using my magic to disarm them . . . but I was ready for it.
These motherfuckers had taken my mate. They had him trapped here, I knew it. They had officially fucked up, and boy, were they about to pay.
One of the warriors with a bow loosed an arrow. They’d learned from their mistakes back in the tomb: the tips of their arrows weren’t made of iron this time. They were crafted from the same material as the null blades. The arrow maintained its course, coming straight for me . . .
I ducked, seizing the opportunity to bat aside another attacker’s null blade as he came in to slash at my side.
Parrying the attack, I flicked Erromar around, ripping the null blade from the guard’s hand.
The null blade sailed off into the dark.
I flipped Erromar over in my hand and plunged the god sword in between the fucker’s ribs, lighting him up from the inside.
Holy fire blazed out of the male’s eyes and mouth as he died.
The arrow had thudded into a tree now on my right.
I ripped it free from the trunk and ran at another guard, plunging the appropriated weapon into his neck.
As I spun away, I caught another warrior across the back of her legs with Selanir, and the female went down with a blunted cry.
She’d be back up on her feet in a second, but I only needed a second to step over her and inside the guard of yet another attacker.
This one was huge. A mean scar twisted his skin from his temple, down his left cheek, through both lips, and down under his chin.
He snarled, baring his teeth as he grabbed me by the throat and squeezed.
Fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck . . .
My vision danced.
Lorreth’s voice screamed at me from the past, urging me into action. “Move, Saeris! Fucking move! Do you want to die?”
I wasn’t dying here. Not tonight. No fucking way.
None of these assholes was going to stop me from finding my mate.
The male jerked, his eyes going wide. Disbelief rendered his features slack as he looked down and saw the two glowing short swords sticking out of his chest. As he dropped me, I pulled back Erromar and Selanir, then drove them into his massive torso again, again, again—
“For the love of the gods, contain her!” a rumbling bellow demanded. “She’s one single female! Take her to the ground!”
That voice haunted my nightmares. In Gillethrye, the owner of that voice had mocked my mate.
He had crowed with satisfaction as he’d encouraged Fisher to explain the bargain he’d used to trick him into one hundred and ten years of misery.
I couldn’t see him, but he was here: Belikon De Barra, king of a stolen throne, oppressor of an entire court.
A hail of arrows streamed through the air. I dropped to the ground and rolled, gritting my teeth against the pain that exploded in my mouth. I’d bitten my tongue. Fuck, that hurt. I pushed the throb of it away, freeing myself from it.
“Now! She’s done the hard work for you! Pin her!
” Belikon raged. One of the archers threw himself on top of me, obeying his king’s command.
I drove Erromar up into his armpit, and the point of the burning white god sword burst out of the side of his neck.
Smoke puffed out of the guard’s mouth, and then he was dead.
Another came, and then another, and another. I let them pile on top of me. A nauseating jolt of pain fired up my leg—impossible to push away this time—but I forced myself to bear it, waiting for the right moment.
A fourth set of hands tried to grab me, fingers digging into my throat again, and I let go.
My quicksilver rune wasn’t just useful for manipulating metals and making relics. It was also great at expelling very large amounts of power in very short blasts.
None of the guards had noticed the rune on the back of my right hand glowing brighter and brighter, lighting up the thick, oddly shaped tree trunks that surrounded us. Belikon apparently noticed, though, but far too late to save his men. “Back! Pull back! She’s going to—”
My shield blazed to life, and the interlocking Alchimeran runes projected in the air shone like a falling star. The quicksilver icon burned brightest, pulsing. When I flicked my wrist, the shield rotated, the icon growing larger . . .
Magic roared inside me, swelling, mounting, growing . . .
Belikon’s mouth fell open as he watched my shield detonate, and the force of the resulting pulse of energy launched the guards into the air and obliterated them. A fine mist of blood and pulverized meat rained down, speckling the snow red.
Six of them were dead now? Seven? I’d lost count. I got up again, ready for the next attack . . . but no one came.
Belikon De Barra stared in wonder at the shield still hovering in the air in a way that made panic chase along my nerves. “Spectacular,” he breathed. “Never before have I seen such layered power. It cannot be allowed to exist in this world, unless it is bound to me.”