Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kane
Leaving the human, even with guards posted at the spire entrance, was a terrible idea. The precarious creature would certainly cause some sort of ruckus.
I should have collared her before I left.
Seeing how stubborn the human proved, I doubted she’d wear the magical dampener willingly.
The spire tower kept her away from any plants, keeping her power in check, but what if she could reach down to the roots hidden beneath the rocks?
The guards posted at her chambers would have to be enough for now. Seeing as how I had to deal with an attack on a fae settlement, the human would have to wait. There were matters that needed handling, no matter how much I desired to see my little thorn squirm in her cage.
The portal to the destroyed settlement wavered in the distance.
Even from here, I could see blood and bodies splattering the dirt road.
When word arrived that the Lich King had attacked a settlement this close to the mountains, I realized the peace my people desired was slowly slipping through our grasp.
Did the Lich King know I had taken the human, or was this attack merely a coincidence?
The timing seemed odd, considering the human had only been at my court for a day. If the Lich King believed the prophecy about Deirdre and me bringing balance to the kingdoms, this attack was a warning to us both.
Too many of my kind roamed the various lands, mingling with the other races instead of living in the mountains, where it was easier for me to protect them.
Many generations ago, the moon fae once lived near the Life Tree in the Nightsong Jungle, but when the Rift to the Never opened, causing darkthings to enter this world, the moon fae ran to the mountains where the moonlight amplified their power.
It was my father who broke tradition centuries later by taking the fae throne. He killed the previous king, denied the trial at the Cave of Blessings, all because he was a vengeful dragon who wanted the throne—and my mother.
Half moon fae, and all my power came from him. The draconic bloodline was too overpowering for anything else to surface.
Olivia fluttered in the air in front of me.
She had been the one to tell me the truth of my lineage after I exiled my mother. I’d always assumed it was a way to get closer to me, and it had worked. My little black heart. My most trusted companion.
“What are you waiting for?” I said, standing behind her.
She glanced back. Her normal snarky expression had been replaced with an air of cautiousness not normal to her character. “Do you think there are any more twisted there?”
“You don't have to come,” I said. “You can stay behind.”
She shook her head. “Pixies live there. I need to see what happened and bring back any survivors.”
I eased around her, and she landed on my shoulder.
“Be ready for anything,” I warned, reaching a finger over to brush her side.
She gripped the ends of my hair. “I’ve got two pouches of bone dust. You won’t have to chomp a thing.”
When we stepped through the portal, the air quality changed. Gone was the refreshing, earthy scent of our woods, replaced with an acrid burnt smell and the putrid scent of decay.
This village sat in the forest below our mountain range closer to the human settlements. It was a quaint village with common fae, pixies, even a few halflings.
None of those creatures walked the dirt this morning.
Raiders had burned the wooded thatched homes. Doors were left open, some swaying with the breeze. The first body we crossed, planted face down in the dirt, long fingers dug into the earth as if it had tried to crawl to safety.
I squatted near its body and rolled it over.
Dead pale eyes gaped at the morning sun, its face stuck in an expression of horror. Dirt covered its tawny skin and part of the left ear had been bitten off.
I didn't see any other marks. No signs of what creature had killed this poor fae.
I stood, motioning with my finger toward an open cottage with a trail of blood leading inside it.
When I had received word early this morning of news of a decimated village and the strange stories coming from the handful of survivors that talked of monsters, shadows that moved with teeth, creatures that wanted their flesh, I knew I had to investigate it myself, against Acaden’s wishes for me to go alone.
Everything pointed toward the Lich King and his malintended fiends.
Since the Rift had been closed during the great war almost a hundred years ago, the Lich King had advanced his kingdom, destroying more settlements and claiming them as his own.
Towns that once bustled with life now teemed with undead, wraiths, and other denizens that showed no fealty to the living.
Using my hand, I pushed on the door holding it open. A female fae slumped over in a rocking chair, with black veins skittered across her skin.
“A darkthing’s bite,” Olivia whispered.
“There hasn't been a sighting of one in years.”
Black veins covered her, originating from a circular puncture wound on her arm.
The darkthings were creatures from the Never: the Shadow Realm.
Once the magi had closed the Rift, they stopped the creatures from entering, but all the ones that were already here had no place to go and so they scattered across the lands, infecting and destroying whatever they could.
There was not much I knew about these darkthings, only that they couldn't breed and their bite meant instant infection or death, depending on how long the creature fed.
Over the years, there had been stories of creatures infected with the darkness from a bite or scratch from a darkthing.
Most of them were monsters. The most popular tale was of the Kraken by the Oasis who had been felled by a light bearer and a trio of fae, which included Acaden.
It was part of the reason I called him to court.
We had been fortunate the darkthings didn't seem to like the mountains for whatever reason, and there had never been one by my castle. In all my life, I’d only come across one, and never this close to my home.
I had very few memories of my father, who seemed too busy with politics than with family, but I would never forget my first encounter with a darkthing.
My father had wanted to travel to Farrow’s Gate to understand the wild magic there. I begged him to go, and he allowed it, even letting me ride him in dragon form, something no one else could do. He said it was because I was part dragon and needed to understand how the wind felt against my skin.
We’d just landed, and as my father began to transform back into his human form, I wandered toward a cave, enticed by the purple mushroom caps growing outside.
There was no warning, only the cold, biting fear of a predator, and the rush of beating wings.
My father shouted my name, ordered me to run.
A shiver ran through me as the fear of that day came slamming back.
I’d tripped.
Faltered…
The rage of my father blasted forth in a cone of fire over my head. The intense heat singed the hairs on the top of my head.
The massive shadow-winged beast screeched. Its wings beat cold bursts through the sky. It dove for my father, who screamed a blood-curdling war cry and dodged out of the way.
Grass wilted underneath me, death spreading across the ground.
I cowered like a scared babe, covering my head and closing my eyes, too terrified to move or act. It wasn’t until my father scooped me up in his clawed hand and flew us back home that I even registered the attack was over.
That was the last time my father took me off the castle grounds.
Fisting my hands, I remembered I was no longer that scared fae who couldn’t even run away.
Calling a shadow to my fingertips, I twirled it around my pointer finger.
Out of all the elements and mutations possible, mine manifested as shadow. A cruel twist of fate from the All Father.
Darkthings were becoming more legend than truth, or at least that was what I’d believed. Until now.
Down here, closer to the ground, there were increasing whispers of these monsters and for some odd reason, their existence hadn't faded.
More stories of them were heard, which made little sense. If they could not breed, then how could their numbers be growing? The Rift into the Never had closed the only passageway between the realms.
I left the dead female and walked out, searching for other signs.
Olivia flew toward a secluded grove next to the village with big cobblestones paving the way. I unlatched the gate to the stone archway. Inside were various trees and built into those trees were beautiful wooden houses. Not large enough to fit someone my size, but certainly would fit a pixie.
Olivia frantically flew to the first one.
The door wasn't open, and she soared through an open window and fled back out.
“Anything?”
She shook her head and flew to the next one, checking every small home, searching for her kin.
While her family didn't originate from this region, pixies did not have tribes, clans, or courts like the other races. All the pixies considered themselves one group, and they were violently loyal to each other and their fae king.
“They must have escaped,” I said, ready to leave the little grove.
“Not all of them.” She glided to the bottom of one of the tree trunks, the high grass almost as tall as her. She searched through the blades and lifted something so small, I couldn't see what it was until she fluttered back up.
A young pixie lay in her arms. She lifted the tiny creature to her head. “He's still breathing.”
“Then he comes with us.”
Olivia’s eyes watered, and she hugged the tiny pixie to her chest; his wings were barely sprouted. Mossy brown hair curled around his pointy ears.
Darkthings had destroyed Olivia’s village. It was how she and her sisters came to the castle right when my mother was born. They had lost everything and took to my mother instantly.
Hovering in the air, she coddled the babe, humming.
The soft, high song always eased my worries. Her silent words echoed in the lilts of her voice. A lullaby without speaking.
That same hum had soothed my cries after the darkthing attack. For days, I couldn’t sleep without the pixies curled beside me.
Where my disappointed father had seen cowardice, they had seen innocence and made sure I understood that cowering was what had saved my life.
“I need to keep looking,” I said, needing to shake off the old memories. “There’s more to this story than what we’ve seen so far.”
Holding the tiny pixie, Olivia flew back to my shoulder, huddling closer to my neck.
I kept moving through the various dead, searching for answers to what befell these fae. All of these dead, and yet I had failed to come across a body belonging to any of the attackers, which seemed odd. Surely, one of them would be here.
A human male lay over a fae as if it had protected the female with its life.
What was a human doing in one of my settlements?
And why would it protect a fae?
Shoving the human over with my boot, I rolled him onto his back.
His neck had been ripped apart. Not a wound from a darkthing. There was only one type of creature who went for that vital point, and if it was still here feeding, I needed to stay sharp.
Calling my magic to my hands, I created two short black blades and gripped them in my hands.
“Return to the castle,” I ordered Olivia. “Take the transporter rod out of my pocket and go.”
“How will you get home?”
“I’ll fly. I’ll be fine. Take your kin and go. This is no place for a youngling.”
Olivia was not one to leave my side, but I understood the precious cargo she carried.
“Stay safe. If you don’t return by nightfall, I’m coming back here with the guard.”
I shooed her away. “Don’t be ridiculous. As if I needed my own guard to come to my rescue. Now be gone.”
She pulled the transporter rod out and held it with her other arm, adjusting the youngling to her hip. You would think something the size of my forearm would not be so strong, but a pixie could carry four times their weight, an endearing quality I enjoyed putting to the test.
Once Olivia had disappeared through the portal, I continued my search, intrigued and extremely annoyed that humans had been in one of my settlements.
There was no love between our kind. In fact, anyone found courting a human was shunned from their village, and the half-breeds were a complete disgrace. Something transpired in this village and I needed to understand what.
I followed the trail of blood the human had left to another home, the door ripped off its hinges. Broken wood covered the grass, and I stepped through the entryway.
Slowly, I entered, my blades ready to dive into anything daring to attack.
A slurping noise came from somewhere in the home.
Using the shadows to hide myself, I waded into the dimly lit home.
A lantern sat on the table, the last of its oil almost gone. I followed the odd sound into one of the back bedrooms.
A figure huddled over what I assumed was a fae. It gripped the fae in its pale hands. I held my blades, watching the creature devour the being in its grip.
I took a step forward and the floorboard creaked.
The creature stopped, lifting its head and twitching to the side. Its neck unnaturally turned in my direction.
Red eyes and blood-drenched fangs belonged to only one type of monster.
A vampyre.
And in my settlement.
The Lich King hadn't dared attack any of my colonies. There was no point in angering me. I could not be killed, and I had learned over the years never to be captured.
Some of the twisted were intelligent and held on to their sanity, but I could tell by the weird twitching this monster was anything but sane. I dashed forward, shoving my blade up through its chin, extending the shadow weapon until it pierced the creature’s skull.
It twitched once more, and then I yanked the blade out.
The vampyre fell backward off the bed.
I looked at the creature it had been feeding on and stepped back in shock.
What is this?
The grip on my shadow blades loosened as they dissipated in my hand.
Glancing around, I searched for someone in the shadows, wondering if this was some sort of trick or trap laid just for me.
The human female had long ebony hair and a star-shaped birthmark around her eye just like Deirdre.
This can’t be… who is this?
Did she have a twin? A sister?
Upon closer inspection, I noticed she wore the colors of King Henry’s house, and I wondered if I had taken the wrong woman.
Was this an imposter, or was the female in my castle the fake and the true child of prophecy lay dead in front of me?