Page 152 of Promise of Darkness
It’s Eris who surprises me though. A horrible, horrible smile crosses her mouth. “And it just might work.”
* * *
Sprinting through the maze,I lead the chase while Thalia and Eris slip away to safety. I’m the one Blaedwyn wants, after all. If she gets her hands on me, she has both the Queen of Thorns and the Prince of Evernight by the throat.
I reach out with my senses, trying to grasp that elusive whisper of power I’ve been able to feel ever since we arrived. The Hallow pulses somewhere ahead of me.
Power calls to me.
It quivers deep beneath the earth, the ley line lying dormant like some enormous torrent of magic that wants to be used. I can feel where it pushes up toward the surface, the power of the ley line channeled through the Hallow.
That’s where I need to go.
The only thing stopping me is the maze.
I turn a corner, intent upon the Hallow, and realize the hair on the back of my spine has risen. Wrong way. I know it as instinctively as I can sense the air on my skin.
Bolting back the other way, I feel the pull of the Hallow. It wants me to find it. It wants me to give myself over to the rush of power. Racing through dozens of narrowing passages, I finally leap through a hole in the hedge and find myself in a grassy field.
Skidding down the slope, I bolt between a pair of the enormous lintel stones just as lightning lashes the horizon.
This is the worst idea I’ve ever had, but if it works…. It might just be the only way to escape Blaedwyn and her Unseelie host.
I’m alone as I wait in the Hallow for my pursuers. Thiago will kill me if he realizes I suggested using me as bait, but if one is being positive, at least he’ll be alive and free to kill me.
The ground quivers, and Blaedwyn’s horn screams through the air.
The Unseelie burst from the maze, howling and gibbering as they spot me.
Blaedwyn stalks up the hill toward the Hallow where she defeated the Erlking, the thorny vines rustling in her wake as if they’re alive and aware. You can almost hear them whispering.
“Princess,” she says smoothly, holding a strung bow in her right hand.
“Your Highness.” I’m not above common courtesy.
“It’s over,” she says, with a smile that bares her teeth, as she draws an arrow from her quiver. “Angharad will be thrilled to see what I’ve managed to get my hands on. The Prince of Evernight and his little wife, all in one.”
“You have to capture me first,” I point out.
Her eyes narrow. “Put the sword on the ground, and you won’t get hurt.”
I grip the Sword of Mourning’s hilt in one hand and hold the sheath with the other. “As I recall, it knocked you on your ass last time. Think it can do so again?”
Blaedwyn smoothly sets the arrow to her bow and nocks it. “Think you can draw it before I put an arrow through your throat?”
“I set one trap for you,” I reply. “Do you think I’ve had time to set another? Do you think it will snap closed before you can let fly?”
I tweak the power beneath me, and the Hallow vibrates.
She glances toward the stones. “Didn’t you realize you need to power the Hallow first?”
To use the portals, the correct runes need to be activated in order to channel power and open the pathway to the Hallow you intend to arrive at. I shrug. I can feel the power of the Hallow alive and awake beneath my feet, waiting for me to call it to life.
And while I intend to open a portal, this one isn’t to another Hallow.
I draw the sword. This time there’s no detonation. This time there’s no visions. Blaedwyn’s answering smile is chilling, as if she didn’t think I could be this stupid.
“You can’t defeat me,” she points out. “I wielded that sword long before you were a speck on the edge of consciousness.”
