Page 69 of Faerie Hunted

Onyx and I took flight at the same time. Noren followed beneath us, lifting his head only occasionally to make sure he remained on the same path. But we all headed in the same direction with the wall’s magic like a beacon drawing us near.

It loomed ahead, an energy signature of its own, blocking out the rest of the world. It was an oppressive presence and I found myself choking the closer I got.

The bird saw the world differently but one thing remained the same—I didn’t want to be anywhere near this thing, and I automatically sensed that flying over it would be next to impossible.

I dropped down to the ground a few feet away from the wall and craned my head up. Up and up. Nerves rippled underneath my wings and my tiny bird body shook. Onyx landed beside me and pressed close enough for me to feel the shudder rippling through him as well.

What happened if it wasn’t as easy as Bronwen said?

What if something happened to us and the magic of the wall, without the special collar, tore us to shreds? Or worse. It might absorb us and use us to power itself for another hundred years.

Animals were able to pass through, but if the wall knew the difference between real ones and shifters, then we were absolutely sunk.

A cold snout pressed underneath my right wing and shuffled me a few inches closer to the wall. Noren, but not to pressure me into moving through. For comfort.

Even his presence wasn’t enough to soothe me.

He, definitely, was capable of simply walking through the wall. Dorian’s cronies hadn’t put a collar on him.

I heard Onyx’s voice inside my head, with every bit of panic and anxiety he felt. They colored the words and expressed themselves in shades of orange and red.Tell me it’s all going to be okay.

I’m not sure, which is why I haven’t gone through yet, I answered.

Crows don’t sweat, but the woman inside the crow certainly did. Already my psyche splintered in anticipation of all the terrible things that might happen to us. Except we’d wasted too much time already.

I took a small bit of comfort from Noren, as the direwolf took his first step through. Power hummed along his back and illuminated every single one of his hairs in a golden aura.

Finally he disappeared with a flick of his tail.

No time like the present, I tried to tell myself, for confidence. Tried and failed.

Onyx moved first, which prompted me into flight. We lifted off the ground a few feet and hovered in the air for half a heartbeat longer before we darted into the wall.

The pressure increased and the air slowly disappeared as though I waded through water. Things felt lighter than they had when I stepped through originally. Lighter but no less terrifying.

I beat my wings faster, faster, pushing as hard as the little body would go—and then we were out the other side.

I could finally breathe.

Noren waited there, with Bronwen perched on his shoulder. The little crow snapped her beak at our arrival. Onyx was a pace behind me.

The moment we were all together again, we took off, this murder of crows and the direwolf on the ground below. His strides ate up the miles and I had to admit that Bronwen had been right about flying.

It made things much easier.

I’d have tired of running even though I missed the feeling of my claws digging into the dirt, the way the forest looked from the eyes of a predator.

We traveled for most of the night and into the next day, stopping for an hour to rest before we were back in the air. Noren kept guard over us and the direwolf seemed tireless. Once we’d slept, we found a creek offering fresh water and took off again.

We reached Yelaine in the afternoon with the light thinning and the sky going golden.

I squinted against the glare of the sun as Bronwen circled and found a space between buildings for us to shift back.

The moment I returned to my half fae form, exhaustion swamped me.

Onyx drooped and held on to the wall for support. On the outskirts of the town there were few people to pass by and see us. These were the last houses before the town began in earnest and to the left were flat expanses of grassy fields dotted with white flowers and heavy fences of boulders.

“I don’t know about you but I can’t go much further. We need to rest,” he said.

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