Page 113 of Faerie Fate
I took in the devastation with a clinical eye and my heart rate smoothed out to an even tempo. Until the details stood out. Until I saw firsthand the carnage. Dead pixies, dead fae, the morsana fields burning outside those open doors…
It threatened to bring me to my knees. None of this was necessary. The fire creeping steadily towards the palace wasn’t necessary. So much damage and pain and for what?
Why did this war happen?
And why was Dorian Jade running a rebellion in modern-day Faerie?
Tears pricked my eyes and trailed along my cheeks, feeling like acid.
Why was this realm so fucking mired in corruption and tragedy? Faerie deserved peace. Was it never going to be possible?
I ran.
The power made it impossible to worry too much about my own safety. I punched, kicked, and cracked a smile as sweat slicked along my skin. It didn’t matter what happened to my body. Every hit glanced off of me despite everything.
Did Poppy feel this way every day? Or was her magic as dampened as mine had been because of those silver cuffs? The idea trickled away and gave me a cleaner outlook. Parry, cut, and down. The fae in front of me fell, one after another.
I wasn’t going to leave this palace until I knew we’d gotten what we came for, a win for the pixies.
Ahead, Elfhame struggled against a big fae in armor, the insignia marking him as someone important. She sent earth magic toward him and it hit the soldier dead in the chest. Instead of falling, he threw a wave of power back at her, as though he’d absorbed whatever she’d given and increased it.
Elfhame fluttered out of the way at the last second then groaned and gripped her belly.
My throat tightened. I raced forward to help her and jumped over a body in my path. “Hold on, Elfhame! I’m coming!”
If she died, then so did Elfwaite. It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. Elfhame might be able to hold her own undernormal circumstances but I wondered if the pregnancy slowed her reflexes. Made her more vulnerable.
The fae was a good fighter. Like the dragon, he almost seemed to anticipate her attacks before she made them. He avoided every hit from her weapon, and when I got close enough, I saw it.
The thing he held in his hand.
My stomach dropped and I bottomed out, skidding to a stop and crashing into one of the ornate columns in the foyer with a gasp.
It wasn’t possible.
The fae held theAugundae Imperium,the size of a Rubik’s cube made of an amalgam of metals, in his palm. No wonder Elfhame wasn’t making any progress against him. The artifact was designed to siphon power from anyone and store it for the wielder to use.
No. He’d kill her for sure.
Poppy was right—I had no idea what to do, or how to use this new power. It was as wild as the dragon and equally unpredictable. It flowed through me with a life of its own, a new presence inside my veins. This wasn’t like the innate shifter powers I’d grown up accepting, or the soft Fae magic I’d learned to use at school.
The witch magic was raw and unbridled energy that wanted to leap right out of me. Hard to handle, hard to lash down and force it to obey. My veins were fired with so much energy it felt like sparklers running through my blood.
Maddening. Intoxicating.
It needed an outlet. I had to do something with it before it ate me up and left nothing behind, not even bones.
Without skill, without thought, I just…let it out. My chest released and my arms flung out to the sides as an incredible amount of energy exploded from me. It erupted like the tidalwave in my vision and mowed through the entire foyer and beyond.
And left nothing behind.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It tore something out of me, the power, reacting to my thoughts without a bit of the push that I used to exert over it.
The effort I sank into it wasn’t necessary. The spell took on a life of its own and stole what I wasn’t ready to give.
The comet poured out of me in a fiery blaze and in the sparks, I saw scales. That wild dragon given form, now that the cage door was open.
