Page 94 of Faerie Fate
I also never expected Elfhame to move first. She threw a blast of pure earth magic at the soldiers, powerful enough to crack through their line and fissure the ground between us. The fae soldiers flew backwards into the night-darkened woods.
“Run!”
Elfhame looked down at the damage she’d caused, ignoring Poppy’s yell.
“There’s still movement,” Elfhame’s mate called.
The fae recovered quickly, their weapons drawn and their blades gilded with magic of their own.
Ah, shit.
Someone grabbed the back of my neck and forced me down but the blast of fae power singed a few stray hairs at the top of my head. The stench burned my nostrils and when I looked up, Elfhame and her husband held small round discs glowing a vibrant blue.
The shields protected them from the magic and the dregs of the fae spell dripped away like rain on a window.
Mike was sprawled at my side, and somewhere in the distance Noren let out another baleful howl. A chill skittered along my spine as my awareness heightened. Poppy pushed me forward and away from the attacking soldiers, making sure wewere out of immediate harm by the time the pixies used their weapons.
Her body covered mine, her other arm reaching toward Bronwen. The witch’s face remained expressionless but she’d gone the color of snow. She raised a hand and a small shield of thickened air blocked us from flying debris.
Elfhame whispered words of power and set the discs in her hands flying. The weapons exploded, a blue hue lighting up the night and disintegrating whatever fae happened to stand in its direct path.
There…and gone. Poof. Morsana-fueled weapons were more dangerous than I’d credited them for.
“You need more proof about how deadly the pixies are with their weapons?” Poppy shouted.
Her voice clanged through me. Afterimages superimposed themselves above the scene playing out in front of me and I might have stayed there, frozen in place, if Mike hadn’t pinched me.
“We have to go!” The terror in his eyes widened them awkwardly in his face. “Now!”
Even though the pixies were no bigger than a human forearm at their largest, their weapons landed like atom bombs. They glowed unearthly and dangerous. A small sword, drawn by Elfhame’s husband and growing longer as I watched, lopped the head off one of the fae soldiers.
All because of the morsana.
Bronwen spat out a curse. I army-crawled using my elbows, Bronwen ahead of us and leading the way through a tangle of legs. I felt every bruise on my skin, every rock underneath me.
The pixies had responded to the ambush with such ferocity it stole rational thought right out of my brain. They were poetry in motion, their tiny glowing bodies dwarfed by the deadlinessof their weapons. The fae soldiers thought they’d caught a boon when they found us but they had no chance of winning this fight.
This was what made the morsana bloom such an important pixie resource, and what had made a war between the pixies and the fae worth fighting.
Several of them who’d been on the outskirts of the hunting party lunged at the pixies with renewed vigor despite watching their comrades fall. Their magic rippled gold and bright, the same sort of ancient gold as the artifacts that Mike and I had used.
I wasn’t moving fast enough for her liking so Poppy sent a blast of magic our way to get the three of us into the safety of several trees. Noren waited there, his body vibrating with tension. He barked a greeting when he saw us. Several colorful orbs clung to his fur.
Elfhame’s children.
“We should fight!” Bronwen was the first on her feet and practically jogged back into the fray. “We can’t leave them alone.”
She might have made it if Mike hadn’t jumped in front of her.
“We’re leaving.” Mike’s voice was ragged.
Screams cut through the silence behind us. Bronwen let out a weak breath. “We have to do something!”
“You want to go? You’re signing your death warrant.” Poppy hiked a thumb over her shoulder and ducked when a rogue spray of blue light split one of the trees in half. “You’ll never make it back to the future. But sure. Go get yourself killed.”
Mike held out a hand and I slapped my palm to it, letting him drag me off my stomach. I glanced at Bronwen and the tense set of her shoulders, the paleness of her face that gave her emotions away, her heart cleaved in two.
“We can’t leave them,” she insisted, having to lift her voice to be heard over the buzz of so much magic.
