Page 138 of Atop the Faerie Throne
The rest of him vibrates with excitement. He’s positively thrilled to be down here.
Many people have told me that Lore is mad. I’m not sure I truly believed them until this moment.
“How often does that happen?” Bree asks calmly, only for another quake to hit on the heels of the question.
This one is twice as long.
Caed’s throat bobs as he swallows, his swords appearing around us in a protective circle. “Not that often.”
“It could be the unstable portal,” I mumble hopefully; though truthfully, I doubt it.
“Or my father has pissed the wyrms off,” Caed finishes.
Neither bodes well for us.
“Let’s just hurry,” I finish, a chill skating down my spine as the tunnel breaks through into one of the forgotten halls.
The light of Drystan’s flames falls on a strange, lumpy shape on the shattered stone floor. Jaro’s wolf gets in the way before I can make out any features, but it doesn’t take a genius to realise it’s a dead body.
The wolf nudges the corpse, shifting it until we can all clearly see, despite his missing head, that the unfortunate male was once an ogre. I suck in a breath of damp, stale air, saddened despite how inevitable we all knew this was.
“If there are any fae left alive, we have to rescue them,” I say, silently vowing to guide the Wild Hunt across the sea to bring home every lost soul.
“Of course,” Bree promises, ears twitching as another rumble hits.
“He’s been dead a while,” Caed observes, joining Jaro. “A few days at least.”
My stomach turns, and I look away, hoping Lore isn’t about to join the two of them. Thankfully, the redcap is either uninterested in old blood or simply decides to take pity on me because he strides right past, following Drystan to the spot on the opposite wall where the tunnel resumes.
It’s not the only dead body we find. There are more, sometimes in groups of two or three, sometimes fae, sometimes Fomorian. I don’t think these are the only casualties, either, because we also pass splatters of dried blood on the walls.
“Tunnel wyrms don’t leave bodies,” Caed mutters, after we cross the dozenth abandoned corpse. “I’d bet my father used their deaths as motivation for the other fae and his soldiers.”
Keep going or die?
It fits, and I grind my teeth together in anger. Was killing them really that motivational? Or did it simply appease the Fomorian King’s vanity to inspire more fear?
The silence stretches after that, punctuated by the echoes of our footsteps in between rumbles.
And then, the inevitable happens.
“Dead end,” Bree whispers, tattooed fingers tracing lightly over the pile of boulders in front of us.
Indeed, the obviously hand-carved passage has collapsed, leaving us with two choices, left or right.
Worse… “I think we’re near some kind of iron,” I admit, fighting back nausea as the pounding in my head grows worse.
All heads snap towards me, and Caed curses. “Lore, put her down. There’s a seam right above you.”
When I’m on the ground, I glance up, gripping Lore for stability as the move makes my head swim. Sure enough, a reddish-brown vein traces through the otherwise grey ceiling exactly where we were standing. The tunnel wyrm that collapsed the original tunnel seems to have followed the line unerringly, making both directions equally unfavourable.
“We should go left,” Bree says, tongue flicking out to taste the air. “The scent of Fomorians is stronger that way.”
Jaro’s wolf circles back, coming to stand by my side like he’s waiting to catch me if I fall, and I relinquish Lore to take an unsteady step forward.
I can do this. It’s just a headache.
Lore draws a dagger, throwing it up in the air. “Excellent! This was starting to get boring.”
