Chapter 51
Fifty-One
Istood there for a heartbeat longer than I should have, waiting for the shadows around me to resolve into shapes that made sense. The garden seemed to breathe around me, and the seconds ticked by, and I still didn’t know my way.
I hadn’t come all this way to lose my brother.
The memory of my loose tongue under the queen’s enchantment and the way I’d followed my brother into the labyrinth haunted me.
Fear had been right not to trust me with his secrets. I should have put his damned ring on my finger.
If I trusted Fear, I might be making a terrible mistake.
And if I didn’t trust him, I might be making another.
Recklessly, impulsively, I knew suddenly what path I needed.
I just needed to step out onto it.
The need for Fieran was the breath in my lungs, like the instinctual intake of breath before I had leapt from one rope to another during the Trials.
I retraced my way through the glowing garden, searching for the place where we had shifted from the underground passages to the moon-touched surface.
The luminescence dripping from trees and flowers had glowed in the corner of my vision long before we emerged. I had been distracted by Tay and the letters from home. I’d stupidly believed my brother would be walking back with me, guiding me. That we would always be looking out for each other.
I couldn’t find the entrance back to the labyrinth.
A murmur of voices rose nearby. I dropped to crouch behind a bush.
Despite the garden’s beauty, a thorn caught my hand when I rested it against the ground, and when I tried to carefully pull away, my skin tore.
Blood welled up, glowing faintly as if infected by the surrounding luminescence.
I crawled further into the darkness, thorns tearing through my leggings, and pressed the wound to my mouth to salve it.
Two Fae voices drifted closer, the cadence light, careless. Male. Unhurried.
The voices receded. I held desperately still until all was silent except for the sound of birds and the slither of something nearby through the brush.
I looked back and caught a glimpse of an arch made out of trees, framing three rough-hewn stone steps sunk into the ground. Had Tay caught my sleeve to guide me up a few steps while I mused over Lidi’s letter? Yes, I was sure he had, and my heart leapt.
My need to reach Fieran pounded through my body like a drumbeat. Like I would only be safe by his side.
I waited a few long heartbeats, listening, before I carefully eased my way out of the brush, the branches tugging at my clothes as if they wanted to keep me there, and then darted across open ground toward the arch.
A dark figure swept down at me, too fast and silent. I threw my arm up over my head to protect it.
“What do we have here?” a voice drawled, amused and low.
The creature landed neatly on a Fae man’s shoulder, sleek feathers folding as if in satisfaction. The Fae hadn’t been there a breath ago, but now he loomed before me, tall and sharp as a blade just drawn from the scabbard. The moment the bird settled, he moved with impossible speed.
His hands closed around my shoulders, pinning me in place. “A little runaway servant?”
“No,” I said.
“No?” He tilted his head, birdlike, the creature on his shoulder shifting its claws.
His mouth was smeared with a faint luminescent sheen—as though he’d been feasting on something in the garden—and when he smiled, the glow lit his teeth in a way that made my stomach turn.
“Then perhaps you’re a servant running errands in the dark.
Very careless of your master. They deserve to lose their things. ”
“I’m a shifter.”
His long, narrow fingers dug painfully into my shoulders. “Mortals aren’t to lie. Just because you can, filthy little thing.”
“I mean it—I’m going home—” I raised my finger to point at the arch.
He let out a little laugh. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me take you there.” He dragged me with him, my feet stumbling over roots and moss.
As we reached the entrance to the arch, dread shot through me.
A crooked door stood open at the base of the stairs, and the scent of rotted flesh washed through me.
This wasn’t the path back to the labyrinth.
It was his nest.
Cold certainty slid down my spine. The moment we stepped below those interwoven branches, I would never come out again. I swallowed my instinct to wrench away. I’d only get one chance to escape him.
Better to play the helpless prey until it was time to kill.
I pleaded with him, allowing all my fear and desperation to leak into my voice—that wasn’t hard—as he pulled me down the steps.
Through the doorway, I caught a glimpse of a long, dank corridor, hollowed out of earth; the scent of rot and blood rose up from it. There was something hanging in the darkness.
I caught a glint of fluorescence off pale skin. A torso, arms dangling, the hands gone. Devoured.
He paused, savoring my terror. “I usually buy my mortals at the market. So kind of your master to save me the effort.”
I bent low and lunged into him, drawing my knife from my boot in one smooth arc that I carried through into his side.
He stumbled back, his eyes wide and terrified. I shoved him down the stairs as I wrenched my blade free. I followed it with another desperate stab, but he grabbed my arm, his fingers sinking bruising into my skin. The knife wasn’t going to be enough.
I pushed him down the steps and turned to run, feeling the moment his hands came free of me as I made a wild bound, like a deer taking flight.
Behind me, he recovered unnervingly fast. I heard the scrape of motion, the thud of feet, and then the unmistakable flutter of wings launching upward. If he took to the air, he’d spot me immediately.
I needed to get under cover. Now.
I sprinted toward the deeper woods—branches clawing, luminescent leaves whipping past—when something lunged out of the trees.
I struck blindly, desperate for even a heartbeat longer of freedom.
I struck out blindly for freedom as arms wrapped around me, pulling me into a hard chest. I fought for my life and was rewarded with a distinctly grouchy, distinctly familiar, “Ow.”
As the bird soared overhead, Fieran came into view, rubbing his jaw as he let me go.
Fear looked amused. “And here I thought you’d never manage to land a punch.”
“We have to get out of here.” My voice shook. The rush of relief that hit me the moment I saw him was almost dizzying—dangerous in its own right—but I couldn’t feel anything except thank the gods, he’s here. “That Fae is chasing me.”
Fieran’s head snapped up, sharp as a predator scenting its rival. “Is he?”
Above us, the bird wheeled in a frantic circle, searching for its master. Its wings caught the moonlight like blades.
Fieran reached up and caught it out of the air with one clean motion.
The crack of its neck echoed through the garden, and then he flung the limp creature into the thorns.
The briars seized the body greedily, pulling it down until it vanished into the undergrowth.
A howl of pain—distant, hollow—rippled through the night.
“A caster,” Fieran muttered. “You’d have had a hard time getting away.”
“There was something wrong with him.” My pulse still hadn’t slowed; it felt like it thrashed against my ribs. “Something…rotten.”
“Besides the fact that he was a Fae predator chasing you through a dark garden?” Fieran’s tone was dry, but his golden eyes swept over me like a physical touch, checking, assessing, making sure I was whole.
“Let’s go home, please,” I begged, voice cracking. Another thought fought its way forward, sharp and guilty. “What if he’s hurting mortals? What if there are others—”
“What if he is?” Fieran countered with a cold lift of his brow. “No one will interfere. Mortals make deals freely. They give up their freedom, their magic, their lives. Their suffering is their chosen price.”
“I want to do something about it.” A sob tore loose before I could choke it back. I hated how small I sounded.
“Cara. Never, darling.” Fieran’s cool facade cracked into a thousand pieces as he pulled me into his arms. The warmth of his body wrapped around me like a cloak. “You’re safe.”
Safe. With him. It was an unbelievable thought, but I’d needed him, and he had come.
“I want to be able to kill him.” My fists clutched at his tunic without meaning to. I was clinging to him, and he was rocking me in his arms, and I was going to cringe over this tomorrow. But now, I just needed him.
Fieran let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Oh, you can.”
I blinked up at him through my tears.
“Let me be your blade.”