Chapter 8
Callum
I hate Faerie.
This cursed realm, with its cursed denizens, always makes my skin crawl.
There’s something about their uncanny, too-sharp features, their hungry eyes, their penchant for chaos and cruelty that makes me want to dive right back into the Veil as soon as I step out of it.
Only, that would be a goddessdamned feat right now, with the number of beings spat out at regular intervals.
The ether in the high stone arch flashes all colors of the rainbow. A pale, pale blue as someone arrives from the frost realm. A black of deepest midnight hearkening an arrival from the shadow realm. Rich brown from the Middle and a flash of red from my own realm.
Some stagger from that ethereal doorway, eyes wide and legs unsteady as they find their feet in this strange realm. Others swagger out with grins and confidence, off immediately to where we’re all set to gather and be sent on our hunt.
Ahead of us, the fae queen’s court.
She’s one of dozens of monarchs who reign in Faerie. Each has carved their own territory from this hostile land that’s made of more magick and story than true earth and air. The realm twists and bends at their whims, the land as much a part of the fae monarchs as the fae monarchs are of the land.
This queendom, in particular, is filled with death.
Dark forests made of bone-spindled trees and detritus, which might contain any number of horrors. Jagged peaks jutting into a sky stained to rust in the falling dusk. A wind reeking of rot and decay.
A pleasant arrival. Certainly not a harbinger of doom to come.
At the heart of it all, the queen’s court sits in a palace that looks more like some monstrous bower.
Skeletal tree trunks warp in and around and over themselves, a huge, hulking rib cage hiding a heart of malice.
A thicket too deep and too dark to get any kind of clue of what exactly we’re all about to walk into.
I fall into line with the rest of them, sword at my hip and my pack of supplies slung across my back. If I brought an extra dagger or two in case of emergency or to arm a partner, and if I packed twice as many rations as usual in case I find myself in company for this assignment, what of it?
I doubt my mate will be thrilled to see me, but I couldn’t stop myself from planning for the best-case scenario.
Though, that best-case scenario doesn’t seem to be panning out as the crowd of hunters trudges forward.
I scan every face, looking longer and harder than I have any business doing at each raised hood, but I don’t find her. I don’t scent her rich magick or see any flash of her golden blond hair.
All I manage to do is earn myself a few growl-edged grunts and pointed glares, the universal language of what the fuck are you looking at?
And yet.
With each step, a stirring of instinct.
That same deep knowing, a tug within the hollow of my chest.
Now that I’m more attuned to it, it’s impossible to mistake, and it’s a wonder I didn’t recognize it at once back in the Middle.
I wonder if I’ll feel it for the rest of my life.
A curse, if I will. And a blessing. Because even as it tugs, it warms. It suffuses me with a sense of purpose, of peace, of something jagged and broken knitting itself back together.
The closer I get to the court’s entrance, the harder instinct spikes within me.
Dark and churning, the need to seek, to find, to wrap her in my arms and draw my wings around her so I can…
Muttering a harsh curse under my breath and reining in my racing thoughts, I turn my eyes back to the stream of fortune hunters headed up the long, winding path to the fae queen’s abode.
There are fae and elves, ogres and trolls, even a handful of other demons. All no doubt certain of their own prowess and ability to hunt down whatever treasure the queen is about to set us after.
Most have the look of mercenaries about them. Leather armor and well-worn boots, unkempt hair and beards that haven’t seen the sharp end of a razor in months. Weapons slung across backs, eyes darting from face to face, sizing up the competition.
The entrance to the bower palace looms high above, a twisted mass of thick vines and viciously sharp thorns. Stepping beneath it feels like stepping into a snare. A deep urge within me shouts to turn back, run, get somewhere far from this place and never return.
But there’s nowhere to go but onward, nothing to do but keep my head down and try not to draw any undue attention to myself, especially as the path narrows and the crowd thickens.
We all do our best not to touch the sides of the thicket corridor around us, to stay well away from the sinister tendrils which look poised to strike and draw blood.
Not all of us make it.
From behind, a sharp cry rings out. I turn just in time to glimpse a winter elf with bone-white hair and pale blue skin being pulled into the mass of brambles. In a blink, they’re gone, the reaching black vines closing around them and drawing them into some unseen horror.
It sends a wave of panic through the crowd.
A few attempt to flee back the way we came, only to flail and stumble through the crowd, sending yet more hunters into the brambles.
Thorns and vines shoot out—greedy hands claiming their prizes and pulling them into the bower. More cries, more panic, and everything quickly devolves into chaos. A knife’s edge. A bloodbath waiting to spill over if nobody puts a stop to it.
“Enough!” I roar, loud enough to be heard and heeded.
A few are still too crazed to stop themselves from running, or too unsteady to save themselves from the brambles, but my words reach enough of the beings around me to quell the rising tide of disaster.
“Fall into line,” I continue, “and stay away from the damned thorns.”
Mercifully, they seem to listen, or at least to be shocked into awareness if they don’t understand what I’m saying. They seem glad to have anyone who’s able to offer some kind of scant comfort, even if that comfort comes as an command that might help them save their own skins.
Order falls over the panicked crowd. The line thins, and cooler heads prevail as we continue our grim procession into the court.
Relief washes over me. And shame.
Shame that the relief has nothing to do with the fact I might have just prevented a bloodbath, shame that I couldn’t care less for the fools who came to this dangerous realm without being able to get a damn grip and keep a handle on themselves.
That’s on them. If they’re unprepared and unequipped to survive even the walk to the fae queen’s court, I’ve got no faith at all they’ll live through the hunt to come.
No, I’m much more relieved for one life in particular I might have just saved.
Not that I have any idea if I did, though my instincts say yes. They hum and buzz just as brightly, just as fiercely, and I can’t imagine that would be the case if she somehow ended up as one of the poor souls lost to the queen’s brambles.
Just the idea of it sends a renewed wave of panicked urgency through my veins.
But I hardly have time to dwell on it as I reach the heart of the fae queen’s court.
A monstrous place. A place of nightmares.
The bower’s tunnel opens into a wide central hall.
Soaring into a ceiling made of more dead thorns and bare branches, a heavy pall of decay permeates the space.
Thick and oppressive, like being buried beneath feet of forest floor rot.
I try not to inhale too deeply as I fall into line with the rest of the hunters fanning out before the high dais in the middle of the room.
I search the crowd for my witch, every inch of me humming with the certainty she’s near.
Only… I still find nothing. No sign of her. No whisper of her magick or a single glimpse of the black cloak she was wearing the last time I saw her.
But she’s here. I know she’s here.
Somewhere amidst this nightmare, she’s here.
Perhaps wearing a disguise forged from the magick of her realm, staying out of sight. The thought draws a smile to my lips and a burst of gratitude to the center of my chest.
Smart, my mate, to hide her true form.
Here, in this cursed place, it’s the best strategy she could have chosen. Even if not knowing where she is drives me mad with worry, I can at least be grateful she’s protecting herself.
A hush falls over the crowd. A taut, tense silence as we wait for the monarch to speak.
The queen sits on a throne of thorns. Towering high above the center of the brambles on her dais, she’s flanked by guards and courtiers.
A grim retinue, the assembled fae watch the guests in their midst with too-keen eyes.
Hungry. Greedy. Like they’re imagining a thousand ways they might entertain us.
Worst of all is their leader.
Skin a sickly pale and eyes a deep, endless black, her features are sharp and merciless.
She’s clothed in more black vines and thorns, which unsettlingly seem to sprout from her own skin.
They wrap around her neck, into her hair, twisting together to make a many-spired crown.
When she shifts in her seat, they shift with her, and I watch with morbid fascination as one rises from the floor of the dais and settles itself on her shoulder, brushing against her ear for a moment before it retreats.
After the queen gives it a little pat. Like it’s a beloved pet that’s just performed some trick.
She surveys her domain, lips curling back into a humorless smile that exposes rows of sharp teeth.
“Welcome to my court,” she says, and the words seem to come from everywhere.
Every branch, every withered leaf, they all tremble with the surprisingly deep resonance of her voice.
“I hear a few of you did not make it to my hall. A pity.” She fiddles with one of the vines at her wrist, not looking contrite in the slightest. “But I suppose that’s the danger one must risk for so rich a reward.”
The crowd shifts, murmurs. The few eyes I catch glimmer with avarice, with the scent of a quarry ready for the taking.
Am I any better?
If Myron had gotten word of this gathering, I have no doubt he would have sent me here to join the hunt for him. I’d be no different from the other fortune hunters, ready for the chase.
“And speaking of reward,” the queen continues. “I am so pleased to see so many brave the wilds of Faerie to hear my challenge and reap my favor.”
As she speaks, one of her courtiers steps forward. A fae who seems more tree than living being, they’re covered in bark and move woodenly to the foot of the dais. There, they throw open the top of a chest made of dark, polished wood.
A fortune glimmers within.
No matter the realm, gold is a valuable currency to carry, and the chest is brimming with it. Jewels, too, though not just familiar emeralds and rubies. Strange-hued stones shine their faelight into the dim of the court, shifting and shimmering, a beacon calling on every hunter’s thirst for riches.
“A worthy prize, is it not?” the queen crows, and a murmur of assent ripples through the crowd. “And I’m sure you’re all curious to know what I demand in exchange for it.”
Her unnervingly black eyes scan the crowd, jumping from face to face, an unhinged sort of light shining from their depths.
They land on me, and I try to convince myself I only imagine them lingering. Surely, I hold no specific fascination for this monarch out of a crowd of more than a hundred. Surely, she’s just toying with her prey before she issues the challenge that may lead to their deaths.
The queen’s vines writhe around her. They whip out in excited bursts, causing those closest to the dais to jump back in alarm. She croons, and the cursed things calm, settling back into more orderly coils.
I suppress a shiver of revulsion.
The queen smiles again, a wide, vicious expression that belies her cruel glee. She speaks, and the bower’s heart rumbles with her proclamation, leaves falling from above, vines pulsing with the tenor of her voice.
“My bounty will go to the hunter who can bring me my heart.”