Page 111 of Vale of Dreams

“I’m demi-Fey in disguise,” I say tiredly, “and so are they. I grew up in LA. Go Lakers. Look, we don’t have much time. I’m with MI-13. I need to talk to whoever is in command. I have urgent intel.”

“We have an MI-13 agent in our base with us,” a man with a thin mustache says. “Will she vouch for you?”

“Probably,” I mumble, glancing at the boat, where two men are helping a half-conscious Ysolde up. “What’s her name?”

“Don’t remember,” he says. “She’s blond and scary as fuck.”

“One of the guys tried to grab her arse, and she broke his wrist in two places,” another one says.

“Then yes, she’ll vouch for me,” I say, my voice cracking. “Viviane knows me quite well.”

I’m sitting on a military cot, waiting for someone to lead me to the base’s commander. They took Raphael and Ysolde to the infirmary, while a soldier led me here to wait. They gave me fresh, dry clothes, warm woolen blankets, and hot tea.

A guard is stationed outside my tent to make sure I don’t roam around.

No one is listening to me when I say I need to speak to the commander right now.

As I sip my tea, Viviane enters the tent, glaring at me, her blond hair pulled back severely. She folds her arms. “What the fuck are you doing here? What happened to Raphael? Who’s the woman he’s with?”

She fires questions at me without stopping to let me answer. I’m not sure she’s interested in my answers.

“Why did you leave your position?” she goes on. “You had clear directives! Without you there, we won’t be able to strike at Auberon and murder him and his fucking son. Did you talk to Nivene about this? How did you get to Scotland?”

My fingers tighten into fists. “Viviane…”

“You show up here in a fucking fishing boat. How the hell did you survive the River Tay in a fishing boat?”

“Viviane.”

“I don’t know what Raphael was thinking. Or what you were thinking. I don’t know what anyone is thinking right now?—”

“Viviane!” I scream at the top of my voice.

She winces, snaps her mouth shut, then raises her eyebrows. “What?”

“I’ll tell you everything, okay? I’ll give you a full, thorough briefing. I’ll even write it down for you, if you want. But right now, I have incredibly urgent intel for the base’s commander.”

“What sort of intel?” asks a male voice.

I look behind Viviane to see a new person stepping into the tent: a man, forty or fifty, by my guess, his head shaved to stubble. Sharp green eyes. Strong jutting chin. I’m not very knowledgeable about military insignia, but he looks well-decorated. A large gun hangs at his side, a combat knife in his belt.

“Commander Pearson,” Viviane says, her voice steadying as she turns to address him. “This is Nia Melisande. Dame Nia. She’s with MI-13. An Avalon Steel knight. She’s glamoured to look like a full-blooded Fey, but she’s not.”

“I see.” His eyes are scrutinizing, digging deep. “And I understand you have some information for me?”

Finally. “The Fey are planning a trap for the human military. It will happen tonight. Prince Talan plans to lure your people in and slaughter them.”

He shakes his head. “You’re mistaken, Dame Nia. The Fey army is in disarray. Our scouts recently discovered that they’re on the move to attack an abandoned base, exposing their flank. The joint human military is launching a full-scale attack this evening. They’ll never expect it.”

Frustration simmers. “That’s the trap! They’re not just expecting it, they’re planning for you to attack tonight, in exactly that way. They plan to retreat, pulling our forces deeper. Then a second, smaller, elite trained force will assault from the north, backed by a dragon. Our army will be caught in the middle and will get cut down on all sides. It will be a massacre.”

He frowns at me. “Our scouts detected no such elite trained force. Even if it’s a small force, it would have to be at least a few hundred Fey soldiers?—”

“Two thousand.”

“We would have seen them.”

“No, they’re not here. They’ve been amassing for weeks in Brocéliande. They’re coming through a portal.”

---