Chapter 13
Seren
I wish this hunt had brought me anywhere but back to Faerie.
The rolling hills of the Middle. The sharp, craggy peaks of the demon realm. Hell, even a lonely glacier somewhere deep in the frost realm would be preferable.
Anything to get me out of this cursed forest.
I’ve been picking my way through it for hours, head ducked low and invisibility spell tucked tightly around me as I venture deeper and deeper into the fae queen’s territory.
I’ve paused a dozen times to reconnect with the pulse of magick that brought me here, to check and double-check that I’m not imagining the way in fans out inside of me, in front of me, dragging me forward.
The damn thing hasn’t wavered once.
Like I’m a fish on a line, the pull’s only gotten stronger the further I go. And every time I check, hoping like hell it will steer me back toward the Veil, it tugs me forward.
At least I haven’t run into any fae.
But… maybe that’s not as fortunate as I want to believe it is.
Maybe they know something about this cursed track of woods that I don’t, or maybe their magick and their tie to this realm is strong enough to sense how bad it really is.
I’m fully human, and even I can sense it.
The magick here is wrong.
Thick and cloying, it coats the trees, the rocks, the ground beneath my feet, the air I breathe into my lungs, in a thick skin of rancid rot.
The woods around me are dead. Not a single speck of green, not one leaf or blade of grass, nothing but gnarled, blackened wood covered in colorless lichen and bulbous mushrooms in shades of gray and brown and black.
Skeletal limbs reach phantom fingers toward the burnt sky, bony sentinels watching me pass.
Silence hangs between the trees, just as heavy as the magick. Still, tense, waiting, like it could shatter at any moment.
Or maybe that’s just me projecting my own anxiety.
It’s hard not to be anxious in a forest filled with death.
And yet, when I pause to catch my breath, down a swig of water from the canteen in my pack, and take a closer look, I find signs of life.
The leaves on the trees—just as blackened as the trunks and branches—still seem to be growing. When I lay my hand on the rough bark, it pulses gently, an echo of its stubborn determination to survive in this hellscape.
A shiver runs down my spine.
It’s worse, I think, that this forest is alive.
Dead I could deal with. Living death? Not so much.
Putting the canteen away, I close my eyes and find the pulse. Stronger now, a flashing beacon shouting me on, pushing me forward.
I’m getting close.
Close to what? Who the hell knows. But my instinct only pulls this hard when I’ve nearly made it to whatever I’m seeking.
I break into a jog. Still cloaked, still wary of my surroundings, but spurred on by the idea of making it out of these woods and out of this realm, one step closer to finding a fae queen’s heart.
Around a bend in the path I’ve been following through the woods for the last hour, a clearing comes into view.
Wide and very obviously not made by nature, it opens up before me with a small cottage set right in the center. To one side, a pond of mirror-still water; to the other, a path leading deeper into the forest.
My instinct quiets.
I’m here.
I take a few tentative steps forward, eyes darting to the forest, the cottage, the pond, and back again.
Tense and waiting for an attack, a wire to be tripped, some malevolent fae to come screaming out of the cottage with teeth bared, lunging for my throat, I imagine a hundred different ways I could die in the next few seconds.
None of them come to pass.
As my eyes adjust to the bright light of the clearing out of the shadow of the woods, I suck in a surprised breath.
This place might have been beautiful once.
Unlike the queen’s horrible court and the living death of the forest, there are signs of true life here.
There are signs of beauty here.
The grounds and gardens around the little cottage have seen better days, and are strangely leached of their color—dusty shades of green and sage—but if I squint my eyes and imagine a little, I can see how beautiful it would have been in the height of whatever kind of summer they have in this realm.
A place out of a fairytale.
The sort of place I’d initially been expecting when I stepped foot in Faerie. Sun-dappled and vibrant, alive with blooms and birdsong.
Now, though, it’s a hollow echo of what it might once have been.
Quiet, but not the threatening quiet of the woods. A deep melancholy permeates this place. An aching sort of loneliness that even colors the magick in the air—heavy and oppressive just like the woods, but in a way that puts a lump in the back of my throat.
I give my head a hard shake.
Now’s not the time to dwell on it. It’s not the time to guess what sort of magick or curse might be at play here.
I’ve got a heart to find.
It only takes a minute for me to pick my way from the edge of the forest to the center of the clearing where the cottage sits short and stout and adorable. Like something you’d see in the English countryside, a children’s book illustration that might have a kindly old grandmother living in it.
It’s ringed by a fence that’s also seen better days, the gate falling right off its hinges when I swing it open. Stepping over the worn wooden planks, a sharp pulse of magick zips through me.
It steals all the air right out of my lungs.
I try to step back, and I’m pinned in place, lost in a well of power that feels like an angry swarm of bees, buzzing and stinging against my skin. I try to scream, but nothing comes out. I’m completely at its mercy, nothing to do, no way to run, stuck here until I—
Just as suddenly as the magick started, it stops.
I run my hands over my face, my body, feeling for blood or any sign of injury.
I find none.
The lingering bite of the magick recedes, and I realize.
It took my invisibility spell with it. The handful of protective wards and warning charms I cast around myself when I started my journey here are gone, too, and I feel suddenly naked without them.
Exposed, vulnerable, way too fucking unprotected in this cursed realm.
All my nerve endings light up, only to be set even further on edge by a sharp noise cutting through the stillness of the clearing.
“Sesrena! Solhrev, sel esa!”
Am I having a stroke?
The words—which I now realize have been shouted from somewhere behind me—don’t sound like any language I’ve ever heard.
I whip around to see who crashed my party, putting my head just out of range of the arrow that whizzes by my opposite ear.
Inches.
It missed me by inches.
The arrow flies past and lodges in the cottage’s wooden front door.
I let out a strangled, desperate cry as I duck low and run, heading around to the other side of the cottage. Heart pounding in my throat, everything in me screaming to flee, the hard thwack of more arrows chases right behind me.
I reach to my belt, pulling off a few spell jars and tossing them in the assailant’s general direction.
But they’re not as long-range as I need them to be, and I’m not exactly a crack-shot with visceral terror running through my veins, so all I manage to do is distract the shooter and pause his volley of arrows.
But hey, I’ll take it.
A pause is better than nothing.
Sprinting for the cover of the woods on the back side of the cottage, I zig, and zag, and let out a few more pathetic, terrified yelps as the arrows start up again.
But I’m not pierced, whether by luck or skill or whatever, and as I cross out of the clearing and back into the trees, I’ve at least got some cover to work with again.
It gives me enough time to find a powerful shield spell on my belt—one that cost me a pretty damn penny—but now’s not the time to worry about that. I cast it, and the panic in my chest loosens a fraction as I get my feet back under me and survey the situation.
The creature who’s been firing on me is a monster.
He stands on two legs and has two arms, a torso, and a head, but that’s where the similarities to humans or any of the fae I’ve seen up to this point ends.
Maybe he’s not a fae. Maybe he’s something else. Some nightmare from some realm I haven’t visited yet and hopefully will never have the misfortune to.
His long, sinewy body is entirely covered in moss-green scales.
So are his arms, his legs, his lizard-like face.
His large, bulbous eyes gleam sickly yellow in the low light of the forest, with slitted reptilian pupils focused squarely on me.
Lips pulled back in a snarl, his razor-sharp teeth look like they could slice through skin and muscle and bone.
And he’s not alone.
Another lizard-man, this one deep crimson, steps into the clearing. Lucky for me, he doesn’t have any arrows, but he is carrying a wicked, sickle-curved blade I am one hundred percent positive he wouldn’t hesitate to use on me, either.
They both have the look of hunters about them.
Sharp, focused, well-outfitted with packs of supplies. I’d bet my left boot they’re both in the queen’s competition.
The second lizard tosses something small and round to his companion, then shouts in that sinuous, rolling language. The two of them move further apart, taking separate arcing paths so they can close in on me from two different angles.
What I wouldn’t give to have a demon’s portal abilities right now.
Or, maybe just as good, a demon partner to portal my ass out of here.
I hold my shield firmly in place, walking backwards through the trees so I can keep my eyes on them.
The first lizard takes the sphere his companion threw him and draws an arrow from his dwindling quiver.
He pushes its tip into the sphere, rotates it a few times like he’s chalking a pool cue, then tucks it in his pocket.
I’m still puzzling over that when I realize I’ve lost sight of the second lizard.
Well… fuck.