Page 140 of A Dance With Fire
She certainly did now.
The pull of the light was ethereal. She couldfeelthe magic surrounding it. As otherworldly and preternatural as Tir na Faie must have been, once upon a time. Shula had never seen a faerie light before, but she was looking at one now.
Like a spectral of a ghost, it floated in hues of blue and white. Wisps of light the glowed in the darkness, like a swirling phantom of smoke that coalesced into a single ball. It bobbed up and down like a leaf in the water, slow and patient.
Shula could swear it had eyes, and they were trained on her, waiting for that first step.
Always follow the lights.
She pushed herself away from the tree. The will-o’-the-wisp stirred. She took a step and it moved, further away, but still within her line of sight. Beckoning, begging, and she was weak to resist the call.
You never know where they’ll take you.
* * *
The thrall of the will-o’-the-wispwasn’t something Shula could forcibly break herself out of. It was an enticing, ancient magic that pulled her towards it, faster and faster until she was running through the darkness, with it as her only beacon of light.
Branches slapped against her skin and drew a thin line of blood against her cheek. Her heart pounded up to her throat, her breaths heaved, but nothing mattered more than catching the faerie light. Within the span of a few seconds, it had become an obsession. It hypnotized her, pulled her into its thrall.
It burst past the forest and into a clearing, becoming a dull red glow that she ran after. Shula abruptly skidded to a halt outside of the tree line, gasping.
She hadn’t known what to expect the light would lead her towards.
It hadn’t been this.
Not a camp full of human soldiers brandishing swords of iron.
You never know where they’ll take you.
Shula’s light had led her straight to her death.
Shock and fear kept her rooted firmly to the ground for a mere minute before Shula whirled. She wasn’t quick enough. The human soldiers surrounded her, and not even the knife Ryker gave her was enough to keep them at bay.
Steel barely met her little blade before the knife was knocked from her grasp, her arms wrenched behind her back and clasped in iron manacles. The touch of it diminished her magic almost immediately. She tried to will the flames to emerge, but there was nothing inside her but a dull flicker of light.
And so much fear.
“The emperor will reward us tonight,” one of the human’s said as he shoved her to the ground in the middle of their makeshift camp. Her knees buckled and her ankle twisted as she hit the ground, sending sparks of pain up her leg. “This is that fire bitch he’s been looking for.”
They had her face memorized.
Shula tried not to drown in the despair that suddenly gripped her. Everything had happened so fast. Leaving. Ryker. The faerie lights. She’d been so deeply rooted by her fear that she had barely even fought back. Months of training for nothing, only to be caught in iron manacles once again.
She thought she was stronger than this. That the next time she came face to face with anyone who wanted to harm her, she’d strike them down with sword and magic, and flee.
She should have known she could never be strong enough; she wasn’t a fighter. For Mana’s sake, whenever things got hard, she wouldflee.She wasn’t a warrior. She wasn’t strong and brutal like Julius, as elegant as Clay, or as selfless as Ryker, as imposing as Valerio.
She was the coward who fled from what she was and who was too scared to accept what Mana had thrust upon her.
Neither human nor Fae, but something in between. Something ugly and afraid, with all the faults of both and none of the advantages of either.
And she was as good as dead. Even if she was trapped in her own mind, she still tried to summon the flames, yet nothing stirred to life within her. Because of her foolishness, they would take her to the Emperor of Illyk. He would use her.
And the Fae would be no more.
“We’ll be ascended in rank, boys. We’ll turn in this bitch and present him with the heads of wanted Fae by morning!”
A raucous cheer rose up after that declaration.
