Page 115 of Crown of Darkness
I push after him, shoving my way through laughing fae. Another explosion of fireworks echoes above us, and I glance up, an oily sensation slithering down my throat.
A hand captures mine, and I’m just about to push away when another cascade of white flowers light the sky. There’s a hooded figure in front of me, and the fireworks highlight a pale, eyeless face that steals my happiness in an instant.
The fetch.
It’s not supposed to be here.
I was supposed to be safe in my city, with the power of the lands throbbing through me.
It wasn’t supposed to be able to find me, with the bracelet on.
But the icy burn of the fetch’s touch is a shock.
I scream, but another hand locks around my other wrist and then shadows overwhelm us. The world starts to fade until all I see is Thiago, shoving toward me.
“Vi!” he yells, just as the shadows swallow us whole.
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Chapter Twenty-Three
Between one breath and the other, I am plunged from laughter and music into a world of silence and cold. To travel along the Shadow Ways feels like the world turns me inside out and then it’s twisting me in knots again.
The cloud of darkness vanishes, and I hit the ground, palms slapping onto cold stone as every inch of my body rebels. My gods. What just happened? Even my eyeballs hurt. The loss of Ceres leaves my mind raw and bleeding; in binding myself to the lands, I gained a massive amount of power, but the loss of that connection, the shock of it….
I didn’t realize that in a handful of days I’d grown so used to the feeling that now the forest around me is dead and gray and dull. There is no life here. Not for me. This is not my land. It does not welcome me.
The fetch stalks toward me.
My arm throbs, the white imprint of its hand burning to life in my olive skin. I scramble to my feet, feeling the urge to retch, but I don’t even know where I am.
Alone.
In an old and silent forest where little demi-fey bob through the branches. I trip over a pile of rocks—perhaps an old stone wall smothered in moss and ivy—but there’s nowhere to escape.
Except….
A pulse beats through my skin. There’s a Hallow nearby. And maybe, if I can get to it, then I can escape.
The creature straightens as if the journey took something out of it too. “You cannot run, little faeling. I’ve been hunting you for months. And you were invisible to my eyes, until you lit the world on fire. Now you are back. Now you cannot escape me.”
There’s a tiny dagger in my boot, but that’s the only weapon I have, and when I draw it, the fetch laughs.
“Cold iron won’t kill me, little faeling.”
“No?”
Only sunlight or the blood of the purest….
Time to test a theory.
I draw the knife across the back of my hand, and blood wells. I fling droplets of blood across its face.
Instantly it screams, clutching at its face, and I don’t waste my chance.
Darting past, I sprint into the forest ruins, scrambling over rock and raw slate. Vines tangle over stones, but I can sense the Hallow drawing me toward it like a lodestone.
Where did the fetch bring me?
