Page 8 of Wrath of the Fae Queen
“If such a person found themself in captivity, undergoing a humiliation like this one,” Rainier says, “it would be wise for them to use their glamour to present one image of themselves to their captors, and another to the people. To weave glamour that shows a cowering, fruit-splattered human to some, and a fae untouched by the missiles to the rest. Take notice of the crowd. Less than a quarter are malicious toward you—they just scream the loudest. More are quietly furious at your treatment and Titania’s words.” He offers me a small, sly smile. “You will find the crowd will be even more in your favor by the time we reach the city. Cyprien has already gotten to work whispering in their ears. Just remember, the image of degradation is a hard one to shake.”
I am left shivering in the darkness, pondering Rainier’s words long after everyone else has fallen asleep. I am so deep in thought, trying hard to ignore the way my teeth chatter and my extremities freeze, that I don’t notice the approaching scuff of boots.
The hinges of the cage door screech loudly as it is swung open. I scramble to my feet and back away fast when my eyes fall on the male form towering over me. I recognize Jasper’s topknot and beard in the twin moonlight, but my heart still doesn’t slow.
“I couldn’t sleep when I knew you were in here, exposed to the elements and probably freezing. Here, take it.” He shoves something at me. A blanket. “I’ll make sure Titania doesn’t discover it in the morning.” Jasper turns and walks away.
“Jasper,” I whisper into the night, and he stops in the doorway. “Thank you.”
He glances over his shoulder. “It is precious little for a queen, but it is all I have to offer.”
A sense of foreboding washes over me. What a powerless queen I am, if simply procuring a blanket is a struggle. How amI meant to bring a tyrant to her knees from behind the bars of a cage?
Iam falling, falling, falling, through a blackness so thick I cannot see beyond a few spans. The snarling, rasping voices of demonic creatures are all around me. Those horrifying monstrosities have fangs and claws as long as my fingers. Leathery wings, branching horns, scales. I swear they keep changing forms—sometimes beasts on four legs, at other times almost humanoid.
It is not the glimpses of those Nightmares that turn my blood to ice and set my heart racing. That have my mind reeling with a spiral of dark thoughts.
Keira is at the mercy of my enemies.
And I have no way to save her from their cruelties.
We have been crashing in and out of inky darkness for hours now, perhaps the entire night, darting from one point in Spring to the next. This magic allows fae to teleport between locations cast in shadow, but each move takes time as we are broken down to darkness itself and reformed, plummeting across great swathes of space. It is an impressive ability, especially considering only a few of this party hold it and bring the rest ofus along with them, even if it feels like leaping off a cliff each time and dropping through open air.
The blackness evaporates around me in receding tendrils of shadow as I hurtle toward the ground. I manage to get my feet beneath me and land in a crouch before I drop on my ass. These bastards have caught me off guard enough times.
I find myself in a territory of twilight, caught right before the dawn. I look around warily when we are not immediately whisked away to another location. A heavy mist hangs over this place. The sky is suspended in a silvery glow with the stars and twin moons shining faintly through. A hint of the sun’s rays peeks out from behind mountain ranges that stretch to the horizon.
We are in the unclaimed lands between the Starlight and Sun Courts. Both are strange to me: one in perpetual night, commonly cursed as the Shadow Court, and the other in perpetual day.
Those horrendous beasts that accompanied me to this gods-forsaken place lick at the air with forked tongues and scurry past on four legs, their slick black exoskeletons or pale, saggy flesh making me shudder. Some have no eyes, and slits in place of their noses.
My senses go on high alert as I prepare for an attack from uncontrollable demons.I pull away from one that has an exposed skull for a face and bony, branching antlers. Its entire jaw unhinges, revealing three rows of needle-thin teeth as it…laughs. As it jokes with another creature that is half snake and half man.
Gods, they all look primed for death and dripping with venom. Maybe, despite these low fae being a horrid sight, they are no more mindless beasts than Kai or any other kelpie…just foreign to me. I run a hand through my hair as I watch them warily.
Assassins of Belladonna rise from crouches around me, their dark indigo robes kicking up in the breeze, their faces hidden beneath their hoods. There are both high fae and the demonic forms of low fae among them. I suddenly realize those monsters around me are skilled members of this order.
The four horsemen of the Wild Hunt are the last to materialize out of the shadows that still curl low around us like the thickest smoke. Little is known about them, only that they are a force to be reckoned with and can turn the tide of battles with their mere presence. I don’t know if there are only four members or more, and only recently discovered that they are linked to the Assassins of Belladonna. Perhaps the Wild Hunt members are their elite force, or their leadership. I will find out soon enough.
One of the equines rears up, kicking front legs in the air that are nothing but exposed bone, matching the ribs and skulls visible through their shaggy black hair. They are similar to the horses of the human realm, if the latter were discovered dead in a ditch after months. I wonder if horses were bred with demons to create these.
I stand my ground, ignoring the cold sweat that slides down my spine as the damned horsemen prance in circles around me. Their faces are hidden, but their armor is enough to inspire fear. It is of polished metal with snarling, demonic skulls for helmets and the ribcages of their conquered enemies for ornamentation over their breastplates.
I could have majorly miscalculated this move.
They could easily cut me down where I stand.
A single member of the Wild Hunt is famed to have unrivaled power and skill, and I am facing four of them.
“Aldrin. Exiled King of the Spring Court. These are your trials,” a strong, feminine voice rings out from behind a horned helmet that hides her identity. “These are the rules: passthe trials or die. There is no turning back. The Assassins of Belladonna move forward or perish.”
My blood runs cold. No one truly knows what the trials entail. By the darkness, no one even has an inkling of where their base is located, including me. We could be anywhere.
“Your first trial is to scale this mountain to our Haven of Death.” I turn sharply to the masculine voice behind me. “You will find the bones of those who have failed scattered up its heights. Everything you encounter will try to kill you. The trees, the poisonous water, the vermin, and especially the flowers.”
He raises a long arm coated in metal plate and long bones, pointing to the peak of the smallest mountain, whose foot we stand upon. Clouds hug jagged rock faces, sheets of ice and sporadic forest alike. Flowering plants cling to every nook and cranny—not the kind I am used to. The kind that is designed for death, not beauty and fertility.
“Do you accept this challenge, or do you yield to your fate at the end of our blades?” a third voice asks.
