Page 135 of The Shadow Path
“Hmm. I suppose she did carry a little of my mother’s blood,” Dru said. “Not much, but a little.”
“My father was human, and so was my mother. Why would my blood have magic?”
“A child smells like magic in that way when their birth was a gift of the gods.” Dru glanced over his shoulder. “There is usually a sacrifice involved.”
“A sacrifice? What kind of?—”
“Hush now, daughter of Rhiannon.” He slowed, then came to a stop. “The Yuten fae are here.”
Carys tried to look around Dru to see the dark fae he was speaking to, but the path in front of them was enveloped in shadows.
“Hello, Ogmi,” Dru said quietly. “It’s been… well, not long enough.”
She was expecting to see tall, frightening figures from a horror movie when she peered around Dru’s back, but the only thing that stepped into the sliver of light that crossed the pathway was a short, pale creature the size of a small child with long black hair that fell nearly to the ground and light green eyes that seemed to glow in the shadows.
The small creature widened his thick-lashed gaze and looked up at Dru.
Then Carys nearly fell over when the creature named Ogmi grinned to show off a row of sharp, serrated white teeth.
“Too many ofAine’s sons trespass in our woods.” Ogmi was sitting at the base of an oak tree whose roots were covered in moss. The small fae lounged against the gnarled wood andplucked grubs from the ground, slurping them into his mouth like delicacies.
The creature had led them into a round clearing in the middle of the woods where they sat on tree roots that had grown into a natural circle under the oak canopy. Tree litter, mushrooms, and moss carpeted the forest floor, and a red fox perched behind Ogmi’s shoulder, watching them with clear and clever eyes.
He seemed particularly suspicious of Duncan.
Dru was tall but willowy, and he stretched his legs out, lounging on the ground.
Carys was taller than Ogmi, but far smaller than Duncan, and her smaller stature seemed to set the dark fae creatures that gathered around them at ease.
But Duncan? The massive blacksmith looked like nothing less than a bear perched on a bicycle.
“I would have preferred not to bother you at all,” Dru said, “but you must know what my brother has been doing.”
“Stealing the wolf cubs.” Ogmi cackled. “Provoking the drakes and their precious humans. What of it? Your brother doesn’t bother us.”
These fae were nothing like the dark fae she’d glimpsed in Alba. They were closer to the Kheta Inwe from the Shadowlands back in California, but their obvious malevolence set them apart.
Short, sharp-toothed fae, all around Ogmi’s size, hung from branches and peered through leafy boughs. They were all dark-haired, and most of them shared Ogmi’s milk-white complexion, so pale that blue-purple veins were visible beneath the surface of their skin, which was marked with black and blue sigils that weren’t unlike the ones that marked Dru’s face.
They surrounded Duncan and Carys, often clicking their fangs in agreement or tapping their long claws against rocks when Ogmi was silent and thinking.
Blue wisps danced in the canopy overhead, and though it was the middle of the day, very little light reached the forest floor, blocked out by heavy spiderwebs that shaded the circular glen where Dru and Ogmi conferenced.
The dark fae have surrounded you.Cadell spoke into her mind.
We’re fine for right now.
She glanced at Duncan, whose eyes swept the clearing, back and forth. He angled his body toward Carys, and his hand never left the hilt of his sword.
Duncan is keeping guard while Dru talks to the… head fae.
Carys was distracted when a round-faced creature landed in the tree over her shoulder.
A pert-faced fae with wings that looked like those of a beetle, she tapped her sharpened claws against the carapace that covered her shoulders, staring at Carys and licking her lips.
Nêrys?
Remember how you said that there was nothing in these woods but dark fae and imps?
