Page 102 of Faerie Fate
This close to the fire made it impossible to see anything. My skin broke out in sweat, every pore releasing. The unpleasant sensation accompanied the reek of burning hair and foliage. The tip of my nose singed, the ends of my hair curling up like it would somehow find refuge inside my skull.
Bronwen tripped, her arms going wild, and I grabbed the back of her shirt to keep her on the path.
The fire was worse at the base of the field. The neat lines of growing things no longer existed. Noren broke into a run. I hurried after him.
The heat was unbearable for me so I could only imagine what it felt like underneath his thick layer of fur. My lungs constricted, the fire taking up every last molecule of air and leaving nothing behind. Mike coughed and his fist pressed to his mouth.
We couldn’t stay here for long. There were acres and acres to look through. What could we do? How were we going to survive?
We stumbled along the edge of the field closer to the palace. The fire turned the world into a hellscape and the tears in my eyes dried. Each blink sent agonizing pain through my skull like someone stabbing me through the eye with a screwdriver.
Then Noren stopped and let out a baying howl.
I stumbled into Bronwen as Noren dropped, digging his nose into the soil to turn it over. It was difficult to make out the contours of the bright blue bloom, the last of its kind, butthere. Growing outside of the neat lines of the field was a single small flower. The stem was twisted away from the heat and the leaveswere desiccated and brown but the bloom survived against all odds.
Hardly daring to breathe, I grabbed the flower before the flames devoured it, stuffing it into my bra for safekeeping.
Noren let out a triumphant bark, the sound devolving into a whine, and nudged Bronwen back the way we came.
“Did you get one?” Mike asked. He squinted at me.
I patted my chest. “Yeah.” If I had moisture in my body, I’d cry again. “Yeah, I did.”
Mike pointed over his shoulder. “Then let’s get back to the boats and wait out the battle.”
He was right. We had no business being here and the less impact we made, the better for everyone involved.
A lot of fae and pixies would die today. We couldn’t be part of that wave of death.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Poppy?” I asked.
He grunted and pushed me toward the hill. “She can take care of herself. You can’t.”
I wanted to argue but he was right again. It hurt, predictably.
Scrambling back up the hillside took more effort. My hands searched automatically for holds in the rock as heat pressed at our backs, reluctant to let us escape.
Finally we mounted the ridge and into the coolness of the mist rolling off the river. It was too soon to give in to the relief tapping insistently and waiting for me to acknowledge it.
“I see something.” Bronwen craned forward, squinting through the mist. “Movement up ahead.”
“The pixies?” Mike didn’t sound sure.
We jogged toward the boats, greeted by more flames. The boats were on fire, and the fae burning them caught us in their sights.
Oh,shit. My lips rounded before proper horror crashed over me and lurched my stomach to my shoes. Our way out just disappeared.
Trapped.
“What’s this?” The nearest soldier turned to us, his weapon drawn.
Bronwen was the first to recover, the first to speak. “Looking for stragglers.” She puffed out her chest and pushed her hair behind her ears. Revealing their points.We’re fae. “We’re making sure to round up the last of the pixies before they have a chance to escape.”
“You’re a raider group?”
The fae’s skepticism was palpable but there were five of them and four of us. Not exactly an uneven match but one I really didn’t want to engage in, if possible.
“Don’t we look like a raider group?” Bronwen dared him to argue, to call her bluff.
