The head lunged down at me again, and sleek, black fur dove past me, claws slashing at the gaping mouth as I shouted a warning. But Gray was pure hunter. He jumped and wheeled, avoiding the most dangerous parts of it, and landing lightning fast blows between.

  Soon the creature gave up, rolling and sliding away from the black panther as quickly as its root-like legs could carry it, until it fell from the path all together. Gray stared down over the edge, his chest heaving, until he was sure it was gone and he shifted back to his human form, skin flowing over his body like water washing the shiny jet fur away.

  Niall was naked, but in human form, holding Geallta in his arms as she coughed up more blood. “What the hell was that?”

  All the shifters had followed my command, leaving me surrounded by naked, angry people. “That was lesser Fae, done Unseelie style.” My throat was still sore, but without the constant abrading, had already started to heal.

  “And the laughing?” Ray’s voice was pure gravel, making mine hurt a little more in sympathy. They were redressing a little slower than usual, glancing around for signs of more creatures.

  “Glamor, of a sort,” I guessed. “Distraction, and it almost worked.” I glanced down at the sword in my hand, the blade green with the monster’s blood. “It camouflages itself, then uses glamor to distract. I can’t even imagine what happens to humans.” I kicked my toe in dust on the path, and when I glanced at Caorach again, she was clean and bright, and singing in my head.

  “We’ll need to find water, to wash the rest of this powder off us.” I tried to ignore the joyous, violent music of my blade.

  At least you’re happy.

  The tone softened. Unseelie blood, even lesser Fae, is rich and powerful. We will fight our next enemy with even more strength.

  I was trying not to think of our next enemy. But they were out there, lying in wait for easy prey, or because they were expecting us, and we’d barely gotten started.

  Nineteen

  Caorach stayed soft in my head as my nausea warred with the adrenaline still rushing through me. The brief burst of power she’d gained seemed spent, and I wondered if I would be able to hear her at all by the time the baby was born.

  Instead of the relief I thought I’d feel at having the bond between us broken, I was overcome with sadness. It was the sword that had come to me at times of my greatest danger, instilling me with the will to continue fighting when my own strength failed me.

  Caorach did not judge, she was there to kill, and that was what she did, even though the extra voice in my head did make me feel insane sometimes.

  We were more careful on the path after our first run in, but soon we were picking up our pace as the arc sloped downward to the earth again and deposited us at the edge of a forest of gnarled, ancient trees.

  Their leaves were grey, their trunks nearly black with decay but when we approached, the limbs swung at us, forcing us back from them. “Well, they’re alive, somehow, in spite of the lack of sun.” Ray dodged a heavy branch that crashed down behind her. “What are the chances that this is a small forest?”

  Niall stripped out of his shirt and tossed it to Gray. “I’ll shift and scout ahead, find the safest path. Stay on this one until I come back to find you.”

  “Beware straying from the path, Niall. A favorite Fae trick is to get travelers so confused they fall off cliffs or drown in sink-bogs.” I hugged him and took his clothes from Gray, slinging them over my shoulder.“Just be careful, be safe, and come back quickly.”

  We kept on the same path, avoiding the trees that grew too close, and keeping an eye out for Niall’s return. After an eternity, the gloom of the forest lightened, tiny wisps in the distance lighting our path.

  “Did you call those?” I glanced in the direction Grayson pointed. More wisps had appeared behind us and were drawing closer by the second.

  “No. I guess they’re just wild magic. I wish I’d thought to ask Myst about them before we…” The tiny orbs of light rushed towards us, cutting me off as they dove at my head like a swarm of wasps, stinging where they touched my skin.

  Ray cursed and covered Bonnie with her body as they ran forward, but the wisps closing in from ahead made us hesitate and then veer off the path all together. “Shit Mo, how is Niall going to find us? My senses are almost human weak here.”

  I tore strips off the bottom of my shirt and snagged them on the trees and bushes as we ran through. Even the trees had gone still in the wake of the angry, stinging wisps, and they let us pass without any trouble, probably to avoid angering the tiny, vicious flyers themselves.

  Niall swooped in from Gray’s left and barked, a single, high pitched yap to follow him, and we raced onward, the electrical buzzing of the wisps spurring us ever faster despite burning lungs and aching legs. Ahead of us, a pool of dark, still water appeared in a clearing. Niall dove in, Gray right on his heels, and I leaped to one side to let the Geallta and the others hit the water before me.

  I knelt behind a stone and touched the water, scanning beneath for unseen danger, then slipped in as the first of the evil wisps found me and stung my cheek. I dove deep, searching for the bottom, calling a spell for light, Caorach out and ready for any creatures I might find.

  Instead, something pulled me to the surface, and I found myself cradled in a small seat of water, staring at the sleek obsidian form of a Nighthorse, a pooka in equine form.

  It stared at us with huge yellow eyes, then deposited us on the far shore, splashing water at the wisps until they gave up and disappeared back into the trees.

  What are you? A voice resounded in my head.

  “Ah, I’m Morgan, these are my friends.”

  What…are you? The voice repeated without inflection.

  “I am Morgana Silk nic Emris, Princess of the Seelie Court of Light, and Alpha Fox of my pack.”

  You are a Fae shifter.

  “Yes, I am. Like you, I suppose.” I glanced at Gray and the others, but they were all listening intently. “Can you hear her?” Gray nodded. “Well that’s cool.”

  You are not dark Fae. Your companions are not dark. How are you here? Is this your trial?

  “What’s a trial?” Niall whispered to me.

  “A trial, or geas, is a compulsion set by the King. No, my friend, we are not under compulsion, we are trying to reach the palace to speak to the king.”

  I have not seen the Summer lands in many years. Do the naiads still find favor with the king of Light?

  Grayson and Niall chuckled and even I had to smile. “She taunts him and drowns his favorite nobles, and frustrates him at every opportunity. Nineve is a great ally. It is she who gave us passage to your kingdom.”

  Not my kingdom. I am naiad, sister to Nineve, and this is my trial.

  “Well, shit.” I thought, but even Caorach was silent on how to free the pooka from her curse. “I don’t know how to get you home.”

  She tossed her mane and reared back in horsey laughter. You cannot free me. I must serve my sentence. But take word of me to my sisters, and I will help you on the good path to the palace.

  “I would’ve done that for you even if you couldn’t help us. Of course I will take word of you home, if we get home. What are you called?”

  I am Damwid. Tell Nineve that I am here, and she will come for me when my sentence is ended.

  “I don’t like leaving her here like this, Gray.” I turned back to the pooka who now paced on the shore, hooves striking sparks where she stamped on the rocks. “Can you come with us, and leave when we do, please?”

  My sentence was one hundred years, to be ended by the King of Blades.

  “Then your sentence is done three times over. The King of Blades has been dead for many years. Come with us, and we will demand passage for you from the King of Lust.”

  The horse turned her head and stared at us balefully, eyes unblinking.

  “See?” Gray scoffed, “Even she knows it’s a stupid name.”

  If my sentence is up, I need no portal, only to find the ‘tween space that leads to my pond. Once home, I will regain my true form and never be a Night Mare again.

  She pawed the ground impatiently and we scrambled, wet and cold, up the rocky bank behind her. She trotted off with us chasing after, and soon we’d warmed up and our clothes were nearly dry. Only Niall stayed in animal form, easily keeping the pooka’s pace where the rest of us labored on two feet to keep up.

  We made it to the edge of the trees with no further attacks, and there the pooka left us.

  This is as far as I know the path. Beyond this is the canyon, and then the palace. The king will have a door to send you home, if you do not anger him.

  I didn’t bother to tell her we’d angered him too many times to count. She didn’t know this king, or even the two before him. Her circumstances, left and forgotten by a thoughtless king until no one knew she was there, made me want to kill men who had been dead so long they were all but forgotten themselves.

  “Thank you, Damwid, for your help. I’ll be sure to ask after you the next time I see Nineve, just to make sure you got home.”

  The pooka reared and whinnied, then wheeled on her hind legs and raced back toward the pond where we’d met her.

  I turned to the others, my hand falling onto Niall’s broad, silver head. “Okay, giant man-eating plant, check. Angry evil wisps, check. Trees that try to beat your head in, super check. Friendly folk who put you on the right path? Unexpected victory. I think we got this, right?”

  “We’re doing great,” Bonnie scoffed. “I’d knock on wood, but…”

  There was a round of nervous chuckles at her quip, but it died quickly, everyone checking their clothes and the path for sign of carnivorous plants. The sky hadn’t changed, but I had a sense that night had fallen. Bats wheeled overhead as we passed through the narrow chasms, and insect-song filled the air all around us.

  The corridor continued to narrow and it occurred to me that we might have been misled by the pooka, but the thought came too late, as the passage closed in behind us, leaving no path but forward.

  “Shit. I hope that horse didn’t waylay us. She’s a freaking pooka. That’s literally what they do.”

  Gray shook his head. “No. She gave no scent of deceit. Niall would’ve sniffed it out if she was lying. Did she feel to you like she wished us harm?”

  We all shook our heads. “No. She felt like light Fae. But the only dark Fae I know are Ufasach Bas. Anyone feels light after them.”

  My teas had long since worn off, leaving me nauseated and flustered, trying to calm my racing pulse and stifle the fox. Shifter magic clawed at my insides, desperate to hunt the Unseelie landscape.

  Just when I knew I couldn’t take another step without help, a dark pinnacle in the distance came into view. Free of the confining space of the narrow corridor we’d been in, we found ourselves above a vast area of desolation, a desert canyon above which the Unseelie palace floated in the air.

  Twenty

  According to Bonnie's watch, we sat on the dusty plateau for an hour. No one but me seemed to need the rest, but they sat and gnawed on the remaining shifter-snacks they'd brought, as I tried to use Fae magic to 'see' the path to the castle, which was suspended impossibly high above the desert below.

  “It’s got to be a glamor, but I’ve got no juice left. I think we’re just too close to the seat of Unseelie power.”

  Geallta held out her hand, her face screwed up in a childish expression of concentration. “Morgan is right. I cannot make even a simple glamor, and I haven’t used magic at all. My brother has bound our power.

  I struggled to my feet and Gray was at my side in an instant. “You’re hurting.” He led me to a flat stone and made me sit. “Can you at least try to eat?” He held out a small piece of jerky to me, but the smell made me gag. “Shit. I should’ve brought fruit, but I thought you took your medicine.”

  “I did, Gray. It’s all worn off, and I feel worse than ever. It was supposed to last longer, or we’ve been here longer than we think, but I’m done. All I have are a few leaves of the tea to suppress my animal, and I’ve held off on eating them because I don’t want to run out again.”

  Gray handed me the water pouch he’d clipped to his belt. “Eat the leaves, wash them down with this. We’ll go find the way in and come back for you.”

  “How are you going to find a path meant only for the Fae to find?” I argued, But Ray was already disrobing and handing her clothes to Bonnie, and Gray did the same, tugging his shirt over his head and tossing it onto the stone next to me.

  “In animal form our senses are still elevated. If it’s hidden from view, we can still smell the Fae that have used it, hear the footfalls, and see shadows that the glamor might not hide. He’s charming, but not particularly thorough, Mo. I know that from the times my wolves followed you two on your dates.”

  My mouth opened and closed like a fish on a pier. “You know what? We’ll discuss that later. We can all go together, and Geallta and I will just…bring up the rear.”

  “No. You can rest here with Geallta and Bonnie, and we’ll scout ahead.”

  Bonnie was already halfway undressed. “Sorry, Alpha.” She began to pull her clothes back on, her face flushed with embarrassment or irritation, but I couldn’t tell which one had her eyes glowing and her skin warm even from three feet away.

  “Bonnie, don’t.” I glanced at Gray. “She should still shift, maybe stand guard a little way down that last path, in case something comes this way.”

  Gray nodded and Bonnie flashed me a grin, stripping and kneeling on all fours to shift before he could change his mind again. Bonnie, though a born shifter, didn’t have the power or smooth grace in her shift that the other three had. Like me, it took her several seconds to change her form and shake off the fluid that the shift always leaves on your fur.

  Gray, Niall, and Rachelle took off, their group splintering where the paths downward diverged. I set up watch over the path that had led us here, and Bonnie took off down the last path, the only other one that led away from the floating castle.

  “Of course his palace is in the air. Why would I have expected anything else?” I asked Geallta, who sighed and rubbed her feet.

  “He is a showoff, no matter what he’s doing. He always was.” She shrugged and loosened a small purse from the sash of her tunic. “Here, eat these strawberries. I used your machine to dry them, and they’re quite good.”

  She dumped dried strawberries into my palm and ate a few slices herself. “I like a land where machines do the work no one wants to. I cannot imagine how the servants of the High Fae would react if they learned they had the means to stop doing it all by hand.”

  “That is exactly the uproar I expected your brother to cause, Gee. I thought he’d modernize the Unseelie court and shame my father into doing the same, not goad him into inviting him to court even under a death prophecy.”

  “He feels exiled again. You didn’t want him, so you sent him away.”

  It wasn’t entirely untrue, so I didn’t bother to argue. I’d given good reasons for my decisions, but I’d also thought of Gray, and Tryst’s constant demands for attention, temper tantrums, and machinations. We’d been happy for the quiet when he was gone, for the brief spell that we’d had peace.

  But we’d been too quick to send him packing, tempting him with power just as he had so many before. Consequences everywhere I look, I thought, sucking on a sliver of strawberry.

  “He is what he is, Morgan.” Her voice was small, but defiant. “But in his way, as much as he is able, he is loyal to you more than any other.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry that I’ve caused you both pain. I can only say I really did think I was giving Tryst his heart’s desire.”

  She scoffed. “You did. He simply realized he was wrong, and I am certain he is happy to blame you for it.”

  Bonnie bounded back up the trail, tongue lolling to one side, shook her head, and sneezed.

  "Stay with us if you want, Bonnie, or join Ray. I'd prefer it if none of us were alone out here." I patted the stone next to me. "Geallta snuck in some strawberries, and her pouch was bespelled to keep them dry."

  Bonnie went behind a rock to shift back into human form and I passed her clothes to her. She emerged with her pants slung low on her hips, her shirt tucked into the waistband. Geallta shared her berries and looked out over the desolation.

  “I almost don’t want to be human right now. Gray was right. The Fae have done nothing to stop our senses as shifters. As a human I’m nose-blind and it’s killing me. How can you stand it?”

  Shocked, I barked out a rough laugh. “Because everything I can smell except these strawberries makes me want to vomit. I can’t imagine what it’s like for a shifter who has no ties to witchcraft to help her.”

  Bonnie started to reply, but movement below us silence us. I waved her off and she shimmied out of her jeans and shifted again, pressing her damp fur against my side as we waited for whatever was out there, to come to us.

  Gray stepped out from between two craggy boulders, his sculpted body instantly making things low in my body tighten in spite of my unease. “Nothing out there, currently, just steep, smooth rock faces. I thought perhaps you could see better, maybe use witchcraft to reveal a path we can’t.”

  “No one came or left while you were there, huh?”

  He shook his head. “Not down a path. Apparently some of the Ufasach Bas can fly, however. I have no idea how to manage if that’s the only way to get there.”

  “No,” Geallta spoke up first. “Tryst would never allow it. He can’t fly, so he’d have to have a way to get down without assistance.”

  Gray nodded, and I agreed. “She’s right. Call the others back, let’s eat the last of the food, and we’ll go back down together. While you’re gone, I’ll come up with a reveal spell that might supersede my diminished Fae power.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20