The Fae King’s Labyrinth (Courts in Conflict #2)

One

Calypso

“We should walk faster,” I informed my elder sister as I eyed the treeline in the fading light.

Mist rose as the evening air cooled around us, and fog gathered around the roots of the trees along the meadow’s edge. Although a field lay between the trees and us, my instincts nagged at me. Something was watching us. Shadows deepened where the setting sun’s golden rays didn’t quite reach into the depths beneath the tightly packed trees. Autumn was upon us, gilding the leaves gold and crimson, but it hadn’t yet stripped the wood’s branches bare.

“We have plenty of time yet,” Mindy protested. She adjusted her grip on the full basket of cut rushes, absentmindedly caressing her slightly rounded belly with her free hand. The child within had only just grown to the point that his or her presence was obvious. Mindy’s wimple slipped, revealing some of her pretty blond tresses. “The sun hasn’t touched Aldin Mountain yet.” She jutted her chin toward the mountain looming on the northwestern horizon, the nearest of the Arista Peaks. “We have less than a mile to go. Stop being such a worrier.”

I eyed the shadows warily. As an adult who never shifted forms, my role in our small, exclusive community of shapeshifters was to protect our secrets, our young, and our community. Truthfully, my dedication to the role did occasionally make me see things that weren’t there. However, this time, my warning was for valid reasons.

“The shadows in the woods are moving.” My gaze followed the flutter of what might have been a wing as a creature moved from treetop to tree trunk just beyond the edge of the mist. “The full moon rises in two days, and the risk of encountering fae grows high.”

“Cautious Callie jumping at shadows.” Mindy rolled her eyes. “The edge of the Wild Woods is miles that way.” She waved toward the northwest. “The fae don’t stir until well after dark, and even then, they don’t stray this far from their borders, except during the moon hunts. By then, we will be safely home. Here, take the basket.” She extended it toward me as we approached the stile.

Juggling my load—a large bundle of rushes—so it was under one arm, I took her basket on my other. I mounted the stile first, climbing over it with ease while balancing my load. Mindy moved more slowly.

“Once we reach home,” she said as she climbed, “you need to clear up the dried rushes so we can lay these out next.” The pair of us wove baskets during the winter evenings. Then in the spring, we sold them at the local market to supplement her husband’s meager earnings as a shepherd.

I eyed the horizon. The sun sank behind Aldin’s peak, and the mountain’s dark shadow crept across the valley toward us.

An animal cry came from the direction of the Wild Woods. I turned toward it, straining my ears for another sound.

Another call came from much closer. I couldn’t place the sound. Was it a magical creature or something common? Did it sound distressed or was it hunting?

A third cry—eerie, haunting, and far too close—rent the air. My latent magic responded with absolute confidence. The creature, whatever it was, was hunting. We needed to reach cover and fast.

“Mindy—”

“I hear it,” my sister snapped, already in motion. “The Lindrens’ farm is closest.”

I turned toward the farm, only to freeze.

A giant, grotesque horse galloped toward us from the south. On its back rode a monstrously large fae clothed in flowing black livery lined in red; it flashed like blood against the night as he rode. A dark helm covered his features, and his cloak billowed out around him, tattered edges fluttering in the wind. We had no time to run.

I dropped my burdens in the trampled grass and lunged for my sister. Dragging her off the stile, I shoved her down into the tall grasses on our side of the wall. She squawked softly before I told her about the mounted specter bearing down on us.

“Shift,” I ordered. She opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. “Think of the child. Run for home.”

She snapped her mouth shut and shifted. Moments later, a pregnant orange tabby slunk through the tall grasses in the shade of the tumbledown wall. Tail down and body stretched low, she raced for the edge of the meadow.

I stood and climbed over the stile. Horse and rider pounded across the field, hooves kicking up clods of dirt as they plowed toward the wall. At the last possible moment before running me down, the rider yanked back savagely on the reins. The horse reared, screaming his protest at the abuse. I ducked to avoid the flying clumps of dirt from the horse’s pawing hooves.

The horse came down hard on all four legs, shaking the ground.

“Human, straighten up!” the fae ordered, magic lacing his voice. It flooded over the trampled grass, winding around my body and enticing my limbs to obey. But having shapeshifter blood made me invulnerable to compelling magic. It made sense considering the contrariness of Feline nature, my father said.

However, I didn’t want the fae to know that. So, I stood and faced him. “What do you want?”

“Silence!” The edges of the fae’s cloak whipped in a nonexistent wind as his magic flared around me. His eyes flashed red beneath the helm. The compelling magic intensified, tightening its grip on me.

The rider looming above me straightened in his saddle, stabilizing himself as though preparing for something. He drew a scroll from beneath his robes. “You have trespassed into the Fae Realm. The penalty is death, but on this day, his great and mighty highness has chosen to show mercy…”

I doubted any plans a fae king made for a captured human would be merciful. For many seasons now, the Unseelie king had run his Wild Hunts over the human lands bordering on the Great Wild Woods. Magical horses laid wreck and ruin over wide swaths of farmland monthly, trampling crops and terrorizing livestock. Plus, at least one child or young maiden disappeared every fortnight. The losses had gotten so bad that our elders were discussing moving the community eastward. Even the unchanged communities were migrating.

I had tuned out the fae’s droning as he continued praising his master, but then the fae stiffened and silenced.

“Weren’t there two of you?”

My heart stuttered against my ribs. “No.” There had been three of us if I counted my unborn niece or nephew. Surely Mindy was halfway home by now. Remember the kit, Calypso, I admonished myself. The longer I kept this fae occupied, the more distance Mindy could cover. Protecting the young was my purpose in the community. If I died, so be it.

The fae scanned the horizon, the golden rays of the fading sunlight glinting off the black metal surface of his helm. “ will have to be enough,” he muttered before sitting back in his saddle. Turning his full attention to me, he extended the hand holding the scroll and uttered a word I didn’t recognize. The air sizzled and the acrid smell of ancient magic burned my sensitive nose. I sneezed, missing whatever other words the fae uttered.

By the time I opened my eyes again, it was to glimpse him thrusting an emphatic finger at me. The scroll was open and glowing, sending another blast of acidic magic in my direction, and I fell helplessly into a violent sneezing attack.

The fae uttered a word that shook the ground beneath my feet. The dirt parted and swallowed me up into darkness.

∞∞∞

Azulin

Magical sparks spat and crackled in the corners of my study. My secretary jumped and eyed the stacks of books on the floor with growing unease.

“The sparks aren’t going to set anything on fire,” I assured Soren.

“Of course, sire.” He bent over his list. “How long will you be unavailable?”

I ran my fingers through my hair before pressing my palms against my aching eyes and groaned. “I don’t know. The periods grow longer.”

My portal magic burned through my veins, demanding I answer its call. With each flare, the sparks climbed higher up the walls. And with each enacting of the curse, my magic grew more chaotic. The fact I resisted the curse’s beckoning probably didn’t help matters, but I refused to submit without a fight.

“Any sign of the curse weakening?” he asked.

“Quite the opposite.” I stood and strode to the far corner of my study where I stored my supplies. The Unseelie king’s curse derailed my magic and bound me to a crazed task during the full moon, and I needed to finish my preparations.

Once a year, at the autumn equinox, the task was the Wild Hunt, a barbaric ritual of the Unseelie fae court—riding in a frenzied mob of horses, magic, and fae. They rode over a set path along the bounds of the fae kingdom. Well, at least it was supposed to cover a specific route. But in the years since the curse bound me, the Unseelie king had driven the hunt deeper and deeper into human lands, binding more and more of them to his domain.

The magicless humans didn’t even know they were being invaded, and I was helpless to warn them. The nature of the curse bound my tongue from speaking of it. I had tried to warn Emrys, the elven king of Eldarlan, by alerting his spymaster to my plight. The spymaster and I communicated regularly by messenger, but I hadn’t yet been able to alert the king directly. Not that he could help openly since my curse was a fae issue, not an elf issue. At least Emrys’ spymaster had helped. He’d taught me a storage spell that let me carry gear with me during each full moon.

I fingered the edge of the spell. Elven spells were so different from fae spells. We both used words and finger movements, but elven spells were far less tactile. Holding the spell open with one hand, I reached for the spell that I had obtained from Greyson, one of the Unseelie court nobles. The cloaking spell disguised me as a Dullahan was bound up in a pebble, small and innocuous. The fae spell was very different from the invisible bit of nothingness I dropped the pebble into.

Suddenly, my magic flared, blurring my vision and causing the walls of my study to erupt into a shower of sparks. Soren let out a yelp, and I dropped my hold on the elven spell. For a few minutes, it required all my concentration to fight my magic as it raged out of control. When the fit finally passed, I was drenched in sweat and gasping for air.

My white-faced secretary stood in the center of the room, clutching his notes and regarding me warily.

“Is it over?”

I laughed, a bitter note tinging my hysteria. “No, this is only a momentary lull.” Realizing the sparks had probably spooked Soren far more than usual, I grasped for a task that would give him a means of escape from my personal torture. Another episode was probably incoming. “Could you go speak to the kitchen and ask them to pack some provisions?”

Soren scrambled to adjust his pile of paper and wrote a note on the topmost piece. “What kind of provisions, sire?”

“Anything nonperishable, nutritious, and portable. Enough for a couple of days would be good.” The previous month, I had been gone for four days and three nights. “Also, some clean, fresh water.”

“I will see to it, sire. Anything else?”

“No, that is enough.” I waved toward the door. “I will be down to fetch it within the hour.”

As the door closed behind Soren, another wave of chaotic magic hit hard. The floor shook and piles of books toppled, but I managed to keep a portal from opening.

I was running out of time. I yanked open the elven spell and dumped the rest of my supplies inside. Snapping the spell shut, I ran for the door. Racing through the corridors and down multiple staircases, I hollered for servants to get out of the way. I managed to reach the kitchens just moments before the next attack.

“Supplies?” I gasped as I stumbled to a halt in the center of the festively tiled floor.

“Here, sire.” My head cook waved for a serving boy to hand me the packages on the wooden table to my right.

“Thank you.” I didn’t wait for the lad to move. Instead, I began dumping them into my storage spell.

My hand had grasped the neck of the last bottle of water when the pull hit again. This time, I didn’t resist. My magic opened a portal, and I stumbled through.

As I staggered into darkness, a heavy loamy smell filled my nose, even as the shouts of my astonished kitchen staff erupted in my ears. I turned just in time to see my portal—and freedom—disappear with a sharp snap. Abrupt silence cut off the voices.

Stumbling backward as I waited for my eyes to adjust, I tripped over something and landed hard on my backside.

Then, the something moved.

Scrambling to my feet, I blinked in the inky blackness, waiting for my eyes to pick up on the nuances of the minimal light. Eventually, they adjusted and focused on the barest of outlines in the darkness. I would need to find a light source—or create one. I loathed using my magic when it was so volatile.

Giving up, I uttered the spell and made the motion. A flame of golden light manifested above my head. I shifted the flame away from my hair so that it hung a few feet higher, widening its circle of light.

There was a flurry of rustling at my feet, causing me to look down. Vines coming from somewhere off to the right wove a thick lattice across the ground. Even as I noted the direction of the source and identified the species—a man-eating variety of climbing vine—one of the tendrils began winding around my ankle. I shook it off.

A muffled protest came from the leaf-covered form less than a yard away. Someone was trapped in a man-eating vine, and they were still alive.

Dropping the bottle still in my hands, which landed softly on the cushion of leaves, I reached for my sword only to come up empty-handed. I had stuck it in my storage spell.

I fumbled until my fingers closed on my eating knife at my waist. Ripping it from its sheath, I peered into the darkness past my circle of light. I dimly made out a wall, perhaps.

Assessing where the roots of the vine might be, I crouched closer to the vine’s victim. “Breathe slowly and relax,” I instructed. “I will cut you free, but you have to relax. Struggling makes the vines constrict.”

Thankfully, the person appeared to hear me. They stopped thrashing with a frustrated whimper.

The vines were thick and hairy where they bound the person’s foot. They had cinched around the form of the torso from knees to shoulders, but they remained loose around the head and neck of the victim.

I hesitated. Considering the species of vine, attacking it might make it constrict and kill the person at my feet. My stomach turned at the thought.

The slithering sound of tendrils reaching toward me reminded me of the lack of time for debate.

“Hold still,” I commanded.

Then, stalking toward the source of the plant’s tendrils, I assessed the possible root placement. The vine attempted to stop me; tendrils writhed across the mat of leaves, twisting and grasping for me, but I had spotted my goal. A few strides and I reached the wall, a clammy, mossy stone and mud construction that hummed with fae magic. I ignored the strangeness of the wall as I fixated on the massive clump of roots.

“Time for you to die,” I muttered as I stabbed my knife through the center of the base. Using my faltering magic to drive the blade straight through the center of the root ball, I severed the connection between limbs and life sources.

The vines tensed. The tendrils pursuing me arched upward as though releasing a silent death scream, and then it all went limp.

Once confident the plant was truly dead, I went back to the vine’s attempted last meal. Grabbing a handful of vines near the captive’s neck, I began swiftly, carefully slicing through them. I pulled free a few fistfuls of desiccated stalks before I spotted skin, pale and trembling. Recognizing a throat, I increased my pace, ripping the tendrils from hair, ears, jaw, and mouth—a very feminine mouth.

She gasped and arched, fighting to free herself.

I cut away the vines binding her arms. When they came free, she batted my hands away and kicked her legs free herself. Scrambling to her feet, she turned to face me.

Wild-eyed and rumpled, she took one look at me and blanched. Wobbling, she sat down hard. “You are fae.”

“And you are human,” I observed banally.

Scooting backward on hands and heels, she made it only a few feet before she stopped, chest heaving and limbs trembling. Her attention never left my features. “Don’t touch me.”

“I had no intention of touching you.” I lifted my hands in a motion of harmlessness. Of course, my small blade undermined that, but I had only used it to free her. She needed a moment to get past the trauma of what she’d gone through to realize that.

However, judging by the intensity of emotion coming off her, I suspected putting it away would be the wiser tactic. I moved to slide it back into its sheath.

She flinched and scrambled back another foot.

“Careful,” I warned as I slowly and smoothly secured the leather closure on the sheath. “You’re going to reach the edge of the light soon. Who knows what’s lurking out in the darkness. I would rather not have to rescue you twice in such quick succession.”

“Why rescue me at all? Aren’t you the one who put me here?”