Page 13 of Wrath of the Fae Queen
A shallow creek trickles over river rocks by the top of the staircase and I fall to a crouch before it, scrubbing my flesh until the agony lessens. I cup my hands, collecting that cool, crystal-clear water, ready to taste it on my cracked lips and swollen tongue. A desperate thirst plagues me, alongside an unstoppable need to quench it.
Then I let all that liquid fall through my fingers. It is poisoned. An oily sheen curls on its surface and pollen floats within it. Everything is cursed on this damned mountain.
I rise and scan the plain before me. The sight of the temple greets me, with a single figure standing guard. It is not far above me, just beyond an incline with sheets of jagged slate piled upon each other, creating an obstacle course of their own, thick mist billowing across it.
The Haven of Death keeps changing. It has at least one tower with three rectangular roofs stacked up its height, each corner ending in pointed tips that curl upward. Sometimes the tiles are green and other times they are red. One heartbeat there is a single tower, and the next there are three. Crisscrossing beams that change pattern and color decorate the entire outside of the building, while the main bulk of the structure elongates, shrinks, then doubles.
I shake my head as the ever-flickering image nauseates me.
The mist picks up around me, churning violently, curling between my legs. Clouds of it channel out of small caves dotted across the landscape. I shudder as a low growl hits my ears. The very air vibrates with a chorus of them. Then a huge Cú Sídhe leaps out of its hidden den.
Except the creature is all wrong.
It is severely corrupted.Its massive body stretches through the air, as large as a horse, leaping straight for my throat with an open maw filled with broken brown teeth. The exposed bones of its skull, skeletal feet and ribcage are yellow and cracked, and its mossy fur has the dark tones of rotting leaves. The stench of decay rolling off the beast is enough to turn my stomach.
I raise my sword in time to slash right through the Cú Sídhe, stumbling as I do from the lack of resistance, despite cutting through flesh and bone. The snarling hound immediately bursts into streams of viscous black muck, pooling among the rocks.
Another snarl has me turning on my heel. I slice in fast succession at two beasts that charge me at the same time. They too immediately dissolve into a shower of sludge and I leap back from it. I have never seen any low fae do such a thing, corrupted or not. Usually only the affected flesh turns to ash.
Channels of black slime run in a rapid stream beneath my feet, moving through the gaps between rocks, to where they form the body of a Cú Sídhe. My stomach bottoms out as it slowly takes shape until there is a whole creature before me. Then it attacks.
We fall into a dance. Multiple corrupted beasts charge at me. My sword slices and swings through the air while I grunt and yell curses at them. The fae disintegrate at the slightest contact with my blade, but the damned creatures keep reforming, no matter what I do.
Distant laughter reaches my ears.
Am I laughing?
I have to think long and hard on the question, thanks to all the drugs and poisons addling my brain, but no, I don’t think the sound is coming from me. It is not manic or filled with bloodlust. It is far too amused for my liking. Full-bellied and jolly. Somehow, I feel like I am the source of that mockery.
Another huge jaw filled with long razor-sharp teeth flies at my face. I no longer have the time to ponder as my sword sings in a wide arc, spilling more foul blood.
Aldrin. Aldrin, listen to me, please.
That voice cuts across my mind, and I realize she has been speaking, but I haven’t heard her over the rush of my thoughts.
They aren’t real. The Cú Sídhe—it’s another hallucination. It must be the mist. Just walk through them, my love.
Just walk through them.
As easy as that.
How can I, when there are very real-looking fangs and claws trying to rip my throat out?
Just walk through them, when they could disembowel me in a single swipe.
I almost wet myself when I lower my sword as the next one pounces right at me. Its huge jaw is wide enough to take my entire head in its mouth. I trust Keira more than I trust myself at this moment. My fingers tighten around the hilt of my sword, but I drag its tip across the ground.
The entire Cú Sídhe passes right through me, just like smoke.
More attack and I jolt violently each time, but I keep walking. My heart pounds painfully against my ribs, but I force my vision to tunnel to the Haven of Death at the peak of this rise. There lies the end of the first trial.
One foot in front of the other, until wooden steps materialize under my boots. I collapse onto the paneled floor of the deck, right at the sentry’s feet.
I made it—to the front door at least.
My guide stands over me, the one who called me a dead man. Maybe that is what I am, because when I look at him, my vision doubles and blackens at the edges.
What was his name?
