Chapter 9
Seren
A heart.
We’re looking for a heart.
Perfect.
No shiny trinkets or buried treasure. Oh no. It couldn’t have been that simple.
In the wake of the macabre challenge the fae queen just threw down, the crowd shifts, murmurs, unfamiliar eyes meeting as everyone tries to determine whether they heard her right.
On her throne, the fae queen grins. I shudder. Goddess, but she’s horrible to look at.
Razor-sharp teeth and endless black eyes that could cut straight through you. All those damn vines twisting around her, in her, binding her to her throne and her entire terrible court.
“Bring me my heart and earn your reward,” she says, looking out over the hunters. Then she smiles, a threat if I’ve ever seen one. “If you can.”
Another murmur through the crowd. The queen makes to rise, and some incredibly brave—or incredibly idiotic—hunter in the crowd calls out.
“Majesty.” He at least has enough sense to use her title. “When you say you seek your heart, what do you—”
The queen’s cold black eyes narrow. “I mean exactly what I say. Bring me my heart, and claim your reward.”
My eyes drop to her chest, but it’s obscured by a robe of thorns. I don’t know what I expect to find there—a huge gaping hole, a Frankenstein-like scar, something that might indicate a missing organ—but it’s impossible to see anything.
And, more than likely, that’s not what she means, anyway.
I can’t imagine we’re looking for a literal heart.
That would be… impossible.
Or maybe not.
Maybe fae leave their organs lying around outside their bodies all the time. Maybe there really is a bloody, beating heart lost in a thicket somewhere in this realm, or at the bottom of the ocean, or at the top of a snow-dusted mountain, or guarded in a dragon’s hoard.
I close my eyes.
The seeking instinct sits there, just below the surface, where it’s always been. Sharp and ready, waiting for me to call it up.
Only… now is probably not the time.
I should probably focus on getting the hell out of here before I get lost in the instinct to seek.
All around, hunters are beginning their hunt. Some leave immediately, heading back toward the awful thorn tunnel, some start speaking quietly among themselves, and others eye the assembled courtiers and the figure of the retreating queen, headed deeper into her bower.
An elf—yet another brave or stupid soul—steps toward one of the fae courtiers who linger behind. He says something, though I’m too far away to hear it, and the fae’s eyes flash.
Not just with emotion, though.
With magick.
It’s impossible to miss, with the way the elf’s shoulder slump, the way he leans into the fae’s touch when she rests a hand on his shoulder, the way he lets himself be led away into the darkness behind the dais.
I shiver again.
Whatever help or advice that elf was expecting to get from the courtier, I can’t imagine he’s going to get it wherever she’s leading him.
As if the rest of the lingering fae noticed their friend’s success in luring an unwitting victim away, more of their eyes turn to the crowd. More predatory smiles expose more sharp teeth, and the malevolent energy radiating from the court is nearly as unmistakable as the fae’s magick was.
Time to get the hell out of here.
I slip away unnoticed, protected by a charm that renders me invisible and nullifies any scent I might be putting off.
I bought it from a former Crescent witch who was absolutely delighted to sell it to me when I told her how I like to slip in and out of the Veil right under Esme Hawthorn’s high and mighty nose.
Heading back toward the tunnel of thorns leading out of the bower, my mind races.
A heart.
A fae’s heart.
Maybe literal, probably metaphorical, but absolutely creepy and unhinged.
Which honestly fits the vibe the fae queen has going on here.
This whole place is insanely creepy.
I don’t know why I was expecting ferns and toadstools and motes glittering in forest glades, but instead I stepped out of the Veil to find a queendom of death. Dead trees and thickets of thorns, this absolute nightmare of a court, like something out of the very worst kind of twisted fairytale.
Her bounty being a freaking heart feels very on-brand.
The crowd is thinner now than when everyone was arriving earlier, and—thankfully—less panicked. When the darkness of the tunnel closes over me, I risk one final look back.
I wonder if he’s left already.
The crowd was too thick to see the face of everyone who came to hear the fae queen’s announcement. Besides, most of my attention between the Veil and the court was taken up trying not to get myself killed or trampled.
But I heard his voice.
In the tunnel, when people started losing their shit and running their dumb asses into the murderous walls, I heard Callum’s voice.
And now that the crowd is thinning, now that we’re in retreat, I can’t help but look.
I shouldn’t look.
I shouldn’t care at all whether the demon came here.
There’s no reason in any of the thirteen realms I should let myself be distracted searching for him. It makes no sense that hearing his voice made that ache behind my chest kick up, made me glad he was the one settling the chaos rather than one of the bower’s unfortunate victims.
It’s just basic decency. Being glad an acquaintance didn’t meet an untimely death is just basic decency. Good manners, really. Not something that means anything.
Damn me though, because when I finally make it out of the thicket and spot the head of a familiar ogre standing tall above the crowd, I can’t help but turn my shoulders in that direction, stand on my tiptoes and look.
A few seconds later, I spot the demon, and my own cursed heart leaps into my throat.
I can see more of him here, in the light of… well, I wouldn’t exactly call this day, but the rusty sky and blood-colored sun give off enough light to get a good look at him.
He’s just as handsome as I remember.
Just as rugged, with his long hair and his beard and the scuffed leather armor he’s wearing over muscles and muscles and muscles.
He looks just as irritated as he did the last time he was talking to Pytri, attempting to brush the ogre off before being stopped by a big, green hand on his shoulder.
As long as he’s occupied, I should probably take that as my cue to leave.
Even if turning and starting back up the path feels… terrible. Wrong, so wrong, like half of me is being wrenched back to where Pytri is no doubt making some compelling case for Callum to work with him, like he was trying to do back in the Middle.
It’s not far from the queen’s bower court back to the Veil, and I head in that direction, invisibility charm still firmly in place, eyes forward and not looking back to see if Callum made it out okay.
My mind, though, isn’t so cooperative.
I can’t stop thinking about how he reined-in the situation back in the tunnel. Stopped what could have been a very, very bad time for most of the idiots who were letting their fear get the best of them. Maybe even a bad time for me, when the hunters around me started to panic, too.
It was kind of hot.
I shouldn’t be thinking that.
I know I shouldn’t be thinking that, but there was something about the graveled roar of his deep voice, the way he stepped up and prevented something even worse from happening, that did something for me.
Not that I’m still thinking about it.
Not even a little bit.
Right now, all I’m thinking about is getting back to the damned Veil so I can regroup and start planning how I want to tackle this thing, start asking about Faerie, learn anything I can to give me some idea of what—
“Witch.”
My entire body goes rigid under the invisibility spell.
“Don’t run.”
I whirl around, and he’s right there.
This is familiar.
His hands, raised. His expression, pleading. Well, as much as his handsome, rugged face can look pleading. There’s an edge in his eyes, something harsh and desperate, the same look he gave me when I left him in the Middle.
His crimson gaze locks with mine, as if he can see me even through the spell, and I’m rooted in place. That’s impossible, though. He can’t see through this spell.
At least, I don’t think he can.
“How did you—”
“Look down.”
Beneath our feet, the ground is littered with plant matter and dead vines.
“An impressive bit of magick,” Callum murmurs. “But it didn’t account for the way your feet would move the earth.”
I kick my foot out slightly, watching the way the detritus moves with it.
Damn it. He’s right.
Still…
For him to have noticed that at all, he’d have to have been observant as hell.
Or maybe he’s just feeling what I’m feeling.
A stirring of magick. A tug in the center of the chest. A tether drawing us closer to each other.
It probably led him straight to me.
“Can you drop the spell?”
Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt, considering that the jig is up.
Besides, most of the hunters have either passed through the Veil or are heading into the wilds of Faerie to start their search.
We’re mostly alone here, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion Callum would put himself between me and anyone who tried anything, anyway.
Another shot of… something, in the bottom of my belly, the center of my chest. Something warm and swimmy, something that might not mind seeing all those muscles and the ridiculously large sword at his hip put to use defending me.
Goddess, I need to get a handle on myself.
I drop the spell.
As soon as I do, Callum’s expression relaxes. His shoulders loosen and his crimson eyes go softer, somehow, more molten fire than cold rubies. Behind him, his long black tail twitches, loosens, shifts from side to side and scatters leaves in its wake.
“Hello,” he says, and his voice is different, too.
Warmer, content, like just seeing me has soothed something in him.
I don’t return the greeting.
“Fair day in Faerie, isn’t it?” he asks, and I snort a laugh.
“Really?” A pointed glance at the awful red of the sky. “You stopped me to talk about the weather?”