Page 163 of Wrath of the Fae

‘Wait!’ I insist, keeping my hand firm, even when Reid begins yelling too.

‘We have incoming!’

I feel the warmth of his light on my skin as he readies himself.

‘Protect me,’ I tell Cyrus. ‘Fight!’

With a fiercely annoyed grunt, he obeys and joins Reid.

The water continues gushing past me, and I hear the first Dark Fae fall through. Their high-pitched shriek as the water carries them past me turns into a panicked scream.

I smile. I fucking grin from ear to ear.

A Fae scream. A girl’s scream.

Then another, and another. I see them too. As they arrive in their home realm, the darkness is destroyed as the light returns to them. I see that light. It blasts through them in a wave, showing me their outline of flailing and twisting bodies as they return to their usual form.

Six Dark Fae fall through and come home to us in all ways possible.

Whatever creature had hold of me in the human realm is coming through. Its limb, or whatever the hell it is, rewraps around my waist. It has no intention of coming through. No. It’s pulling me, and I can’t get a grip on the sleek ice.

I’m grabbed. No, bundled! Fae after Fae take hold of me and start pulling. They're soaked and shivering.

They’re the ones I got through. The ones I returned, and they’re fighting to keep me with them.

I withdraw my power from the portal and feel it fall silent. The water stops pouring, and whatever had me falls lifeless and solid, still twisted around my middle.

My hands shake from the cold as I try to prise it off. The others all take hold, and it snaps.

‘Are you okay?’ asks a woman, breaking off more and more pieces.

‘Yeah,’ I reply through chattering teeth. ‘W-what is that thing?’

‘It was some k-kind of tree,’ she replies, her chattering teeth as bad as mine. ‘A living t-t-tree. Clothes. You n-need clothes, Raven.’

‘You know me?’

A man replies now. ‘W-we all do. We were ordered to hunt you down. Any e-enemy of Ivan is our friend. Thank you! T-thank you so much for saving us!’

A painful blast of cold air blows over us all as someone with wings lands nearby. A cloak is wrapped around me.

‘Up you get, Princess,’ Cyrus orders, hoisting me to my feet. ‘I have to get you out of here. It’s too dangerous.’

‘What’s h-h-happening?’

‘Seems The First Kingdom soldiers that escaped have fled and are trying to take refuge in the Fifth. Your army has followed them, and they are currently pinned between a resistant Fifth and a royally pissed-off bunch of Thirteen who believe they have killed their queen.’

‘The Fifth are f-f-fighting for u-us?’

‘They’re trying. But it’s mainly towns folk and servants. If The First get inside, they’ll be too well protected. They’ll regroup.’

‘S-show me!’

I take his hand, and he lets me see the truth of his eyes.

The Fifth Kingdom. I recognise it from the book Ezra showed me. Mountains of pure white with jagged ice at their peaks surround us. Snow falls, almost whiting out the kingdom from sight. A great castle of black stone… no, black ice, overshadows us all in the horizon. Half of it has been destroyed, and smoke billows from the ruins. At the base, several miles away, is a village. Houses, huts and cottages lie in utter devastation. Blood soaks into the snow.

We are stood atop a high ravine. Below, a passage a mile wide plays host to a battle. First Kindom soldiers fight soldiers dressed in pale green and gold, alongside our soldiers.

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